Aiden enjoys music. While he’s out jogging, he’s listening 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 very thing that Aiden enjoys, the loud, immersive music, may be contributing to irreversible damage to his hearing.
For your ears, there are safe ways to listen to music and hazardous ways to listen to music. Unfortunately, most of us choose the more hazardous listening choice.
How can hearing loss be the result of listening to music?
Your ability to hear can be compromised over time by exposure to loud noise. We’re used to thinking of hearing loss as a problem associated with aging, but more and more research reveals that it’s really the accumulation of noise-induced damage that is the issue here and not anything intrinsic to the aging process.
It also turns out that younger ears are especially vulnerable to noise-induced damage (they’re still growing, after all). And yet, the long-term damage from high volume is more likely to be disregarded by young adults. So there’s an epidemic of younger people with hearing loss thanks, in part, to high volume headphone use.
Can you listen to music safely?
It’s obviously hazardous to listen to music on max volume. But simply turning the volume down is a safer way to listen. Here are a couple of basic recommendations:
- For adults: No more than 40 hours of weekly listening on a device and keep the volume below 80dB.
- For teens and young children: 40 hours is still fine but lower the volume to 75dB.
About five hours and forty minutes a day will be about forty hours every week. Though that could seem like a long time, it can seem to pass rather quickly. Even still, most individuals have a fairly sound concept of keeping track of time, it’s something we’re taught to do successfully from a really young age.
Keeping track of volume is a little less intuitive. Volume isn’t measured in decibels on most smart devices like TVs, computers, and smartphones. Each device has its own arbitrary scale. It could be 1-100. But perhaps it’s 1-16. You might not have a clue how close to max volume you are or even what max volume on your device is.
How can you listen to tunes while monitoring your volume?
It’s not very easy to tell how loud 80 decibels is, but thankfully there are some non-intrusive ways to tell how loud the volume is. It’s even more difficult to understand the difference between 80 and 75dB.
So using one of the numerous noise free monitoring apps is highly suggested. Real-time volumes of the noise around you will be obtainable from both iPhone and Android apps. That way you can track the dB level of your music in real-time and make adjustments. Or, while listening to music, you can also adjust your settings in your smartphone which will efficiently let you know that your volume is too loud.
The volume of a garbage disposal
Typically, 80 dB is about as loud as your garbage disposal or your dishwasher. That’s not too loud. Your ears will begin to take damage at volumes higher than this threshold so it’s a significant observation.
So you’ll want to be extra aware of those times when you’re moving beyond that volume threshold. If you do listen to some music above 80dB, remember to limit your exposure. Perhaps listen to your favorite song at full volume instead of the entire album.
Over time, loud listening will cause hearing problems. You can develop hearing loss and tinnitus. The more you can be cognizant of when your ears are going into the danger zone, the more educated your decision-making can be. And safer listening will ideally be part of those decisions.
Still have questions about safe listening? Contact us to go over more options.