How do headphones affect your hearing

A literature review also found an association between the length of time using personal audio devices and hearing loss, though it noted that most evidence was of low quality. A recent Statistics Canada study found that young people were more likely to listen to music at loud volumes with headphones than older age groups, and were also more likely to report tinnitus, or ringing in the ears.

Fortunately, Hodgetts said, most people are pretty good at keeping their listening volume to a reasonable level. The ones that you hear them walk by and you can tell what song is playing from their headphones. World Canada Local. Full Menu Search Menu. Close Local your local region National. Search Submit search Quick Search. Comments Close comments menu. Video link. Close X. Let us explore further how headphones can cause damage to your hearing. Yes, headphones do damage your hearing, but it is actually the noise from the headphones that causes damage to your ears.

Research from the University of Leicester has shown proof that when you listen to music on your headphones with the volume turned up too high, it causes damage to the coating of the nerve cells that are present in your ears. Over a period of time, this can eventually cause deafness. The research showed that the high volume of music in a headphone has a noise level that is similar to that of a jet engine.

Tinnitus, which is a condition that presents as a constant buzzing or ringing in the ears, and temporary deafness have been proven to be caused by noises that are louder than decibels. The research conducted at the University of Leicester looked at the impact of loud noises on hearing loss. It was found that the nerve cells present in the ears, which carry the electrical signals from the ears to the brain, is coated by a myelin sheath. The myelin sheath is actually what helps these electrical signals to travel along the nerve cells to reach the brain.

Exposure to loud noise over decibels over a period of time strips the nerve cells of this myelin sheath. This renders them incapable of passing or transmitting the information successfully from the ears to the brain; and this is how the hearing gets damaged from the use of headphones.

However, the good news is the deafness caused in these scenarios, such as from the use of headphones is not permanent. A person can get back their normal hearing once the myelin coating that surrounds the nerve cells reforms and allows the auditory nerve cells to function normally again. Therefore, the hearing loss is only temporary, but nevertheless, it is a worrying condition. The debate continues to rage on whether earbuds are better or headphones are better?

Due to their compact size and easy to carry nature, most people prefer to use earbuds over headphones. There is no doubt that earbuds are helpful devices, but this is only as long as you use them at low volumes. Many loud noises cause the cells to bend or fold over. The hair cells take time to recover from extreme vibrations caused by loud noise. In some cases, however, the cells never recover.

They may be too damaged to function normally any longer. This leads to lasting hearing loss. This type of noise-induced hearing damage is almost impossible to recover from. No cure exists for repairing a damaged inner ear. Even listening to headphones or earbuds at a moderate volume can damage your hearing over time. The duration of the exposure matters just as much as the volume. Data via cdc. As you can see, louder noises cause hearing damage much faster than quieter ones, but quiet ones can still cause damage over time.

For instance, a 90 decibel dB noise — about the same as a loud motorcycle approximately 30 feet away — causes hearing damage in under 3 hours. A sound of about dB — similar to a gas lawnmower or other power tools — can damage your hearing in less than 5 minutes. What about headphones?

You should note that decibels decrease with distance — the closer you are to the source of a sound, the louder it is. For this reason, many audiologists and hearing experts recommend over-the-ear headphones instead of in-ear models like earbuds.