Aiden loves music. While he’s out running, he listens to Pandora, while working it’s Spotify, and he has a playlist for everything he does: gaming, cooking, gym time, and everything else. Everything in his life has a soundtrack and it’s playing on his headphones. But the exact thing that Aiden enjoys, the loud, immersive music, might be contributing to permanent harm to his hearing.
For your ears, there are healthy ways to listen to music and dangerous ways to listen to music. Regrettably, most of us pick the more hazardous listening choice.
How can listening to music result in hearing loss?
Your ability to hear can be damaged over time by exposure to loud noise. We’re used to thinking of hearing loss as an issue associated with aging, but more and more research indicates that it’s really the accumulation of noise-related damage that is the issue here and not anything inherent in the aging process.
Younger ears which are still developing are, as it turns out, more susceptible to noise-induced damage. And yet, younger adults are more likely to be dismissive of the long-term hazards of high volume. So there’s an epidemic of younger individuals with hearing loss thanks, in part, to loud headphone use.
Is there a safe way to enjoy music?
It’s obviously dangerous to listen to music at max volume. But merely turning down the volume is a less dangerous way to listen. The general recommendations for safe volumes are:
- For adults: No more than 40 hours of weekly listening on a device and keep the volume lower than 80dB.
- For teens and young children: You can still listen for 40 hours, but the volume should still be below 75dB.
Forty hours every week translates into about five hours and forty minutes per day. That may seem like a lot, but it can go by fairly quickly. Even still, most people have a pretty reliable concept of keeping track of time, it’s something we’re taught to do efficiently from a very young age.
Monitoring volume is a little less intuitive. Volume isn’t measured in decibels on the majority of smart devices such as TVs, computers, and smartphones. Each device has its own arbitrary scale. Maybe it’s 1-100. Or it could be 1-10. You may have no idea what the max volume is on your device, or how close to the max you are.
How can you listen to tunes while monitoring your volume?
There are a few non-intrusive, easy ways to determine just how loud the volume on your music actually is, because it’s not very easy for us to conceptualize exactly what 80dB sounds like. Differentiating 75 from, let’s say, 80 decibels is even more perplexing.
So using one of the numerous noise free monitoring apps is highly advisable. These apps, generally available for both iPhone and Android devices, will provide you with8 real-time readouts on the noises around you. That way you can track the dB level of your music in real-time and make alterations. Your smartphone will, with the correct settings, inform you when the volume gets too loud.
As loud as a garbage disposal
Generally, 80 dB is about as noisy as your garbage disposal or your dishwasher. So, it’s loud, but it’s not that loud. Your ears will start to take damage at volumes above this threshold so it’s an important observation.
So you’ll want to be more mindful of those times when you’re going beyond that volume threshold. And limit your exposure if you do listen to music above 80dB. Maybe minimize loud listening to a song instead of an album.
Over time, loud listening will cause hearing problems. Hearing loss and tinnitus can be the outcome. The more you can be cognizant of when your ears are entering the danger zone, the more informed your decision-making can be. And ideally, those decisions lean towards safer listening.
Still have questions about safe listening? Give us a call to go over more options.
