Aiden loves music. He listens to Spotify while at work, switches to Pandora while jogging, and he has a playlist for everything: 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 loves, the loud, immersive music, might be contributing to irreversible harm to his hearing.
For your ears, there are safe ways to listen to music and dangerous ways to listen to music. However, most of us pick the more dangerous listening choice.
How can hearing loss be the result of listening to music?
As time passes, loud noises can lead to degeneration of your hearing abilities. Normally, we think of aging as the primary cause of hearing loss, but more and more research suggests that it’s actually the accumulation of noise-induced damage that is the problem here and not anything intrinsic to the aging process.
It also turns out that younger ears are especially vulnerable to noise-related damage (they’re still growing, after all). And yet, the long-term harm from high volume is more likely to be ignored by young adults. So there’s an epidemic of younger individuals with hearing loss thanks, in part, to loud headphone use.
Is there a safe way to listen to music?
It’s obviously dangerous to enjoy music at max volume. But simply turning the volume down is a less dangerous way to listen. The general recommendations for safe volumes are:
- For adults: 40 hours or less of weekly listening on a device and keep the volume lower than 80dB.
- For teens and young children: 40 hours is still okay but lower the volume to 75dB.
Forty hours per week is about five hours and forty minutes a day. Though that may seem like a while, it can seem to pass rather quickly. But we’re trained to monitor time our whole lives so the majority of us are rather good at it.
Keeping track of volume is a little less user-friendly. Volume isn’t gauged in decibels on the majority of 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 may 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 music while monitoring your volume?
It’s not really easy to know how loud 80 decibels is, but luckily there are a few non-intrusive ways to know how loud the volume is. Differentiating 75 from, let’s say, 80 decibels is even more perplexing.
So using one of the many noise free monitoring apps is highly recommended. These apps, widely available for both iPhone and Android devices, will give you real-time readouts on the noises around you. In this way, you can make real-time alterations while monitoring your actual dB level. Your smartphone will, with the proper settings, inform you when the volume goes too high.
The volume of a garbage disposal
Your garbage disposal or dishwasher is generally about 80 decibels. That’s not too loud. It’s a relevant observation because 80dB is about as much noise as your ears can handle without damage.
So you’ll want to be more aware of those times at which you’re moving beyond that volume threshold. If you do listen to some music above 80dB, remember to minimize your exposure. Maybe minimize loud listening to a song instead of an album.
Listening to music at a loud volume can and will cause you to develop hearing issues over the long term. You can develop tinnitus and hearing loss. Your decision making will be more educated the more aware you are of when you’re entering the danger zone. And safer listening will ideally be part of those decisions.
Give us a call if you still have questions about the safety of your ears.
