How harmful is listening to music on headphones

Perhaps many of you have heard that headphones are sheer harm and if you want to preserve your hearing, it is best to use them as little as possible. Let's see if your favorite music on headphones is really so bad for your health. So, let's begin.

World statistics

If you trust the statistics of such an organization as WHO, then more than a billion young people are at risk of spoiling and even completely losing their hearing due to their irrepressible love for loud music.

The study was conducted among people between the ages of 12 and 15, who very often listen to music on their players and phones. So, a dangerous level is considered to be a noise level that exceeds the level of 85 dB to which a person is exposed for a long time.

So, according to the recommendations of doctors, the safe time for listening to very loud music of 100 dB is limited to only 15 minutes.

So now put down your headphones

In fact, all this is a stereotype (misconception) that headphones are harmful. The harm is caused not by the proximity of the sound source, but by its intensity. Simply put, listening to music on headphones at acceptable volumes is quite possible and safe, but winding up your favorite speakers to the full turns out to be very harmful.

How to tell if noise is dangerous

I very much doubt that you have a special device for determining the noise level, so now I will list the analogs that you should be guided by in order to understand whether the sound is dangerous or not.

So the noise level equal to 80 dB is comparable to the sound of a working mixer or a passing freight train. The noise level of 100 dB is comparable to a jackhammer working near you.

Also focus on your body: if after listening to music you feel ringing in your ears, then this is definitely bad. This means the volume level was dangerously high and should be avoided henceforth.

Experiments and statistics over the years

Scientists have been testing the effects of loud sounds on humans for many years, and the results of many studies seem quite curious.

So, a study conducted in 2015 showed that fans of often listening to loud music on headphones can develop the so-called "hidden hearing loss", which is as follows:

In tests in quiet rooms, all of the young people tested showed excellent hearing results, but once similar tests were carried out in rooms where there was noise or strong echoes, it was noted that a group of fans of loud music was found deafness.

And the subsequent electronic diagnostics really confirmed the decrease in the hearing qualities of the tested.

Simply put, scientists have found that the harm from loud music is really bad for your hearing.

How harmful the headphones themselves are

Another large-scale study, in which seven thousand people took part at once, was conducted by the University of California and was carried out for 22 years.

So in the period from 1988 to 2010, the tests carried out did not show any significant hearing loss among fans of listening to music with headphones at an acceptable volume.

The same sample conducted in another test among subjects aged 20 to 69 years, starting from 1999 to 2012, showed that the average hearing loss was 2%, which fits well with natural hearing loss with age.

conclusions

From all of the above, we can conclude that the headphones themselves do not pose any threat to your hearing. The most important condition is not to exceed a safe volume.

And if the sounds of the subway, conversations on the street or an unsuccessful playlist in a taxi bother you, then it is better not to turn up the volume, but to buy headphones with noise canceling.

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