Is it true that using headphones can cause hearing loss?

There is an opinion that listening to music through headphones harms your hearing and can even lead to deafness. We decided to check whether this statement has a scientific basis.

Many media outlets write about the dangers of headphones for hearing, for example Lenta.ru, "RIA Novosti" And "Rossiyskaya Gazeta". You can find articles about this on portals dedicated to technology. Apple And Android, on websites medical institutions, shops accessories for hearing impaired people. They write users talk about it too "Yandex.Zena" And "VKontakte". 

Loud music (or other loud noises) can actually have a negative impact on your hearing. This is confirmed by the results experiments. One of them was conducted on music students who listened to loud music for four to six hours every day, and on a control group of students in specialties not related to listening to loud sounds. A conventional hearing acuity test, conducted in a quiet room, did not reveal much difference between the groups, but the scientists went further and expanded the test. Participants now had to listen to speech and sounds while music was playing in the background or there was an echo in the room. And here it turned out that it was much more difficult for music university students to recognize words than for students who had not previously had to listen to loud music for a long time. The scientists also examined the reaction of the subjects' auditory nerves: in the group with an increased risk, this reaction was worse than in the other group.

Safe volume level For human hearing, sounds up to 80–90 decibels are considered. Anything higher is already uncomfortable for most people, and listening to such sounds for more than eight hours can cause harm. In Russia, noise levels at work counts safe for workers if it is below 80 dB. Otherwise, the employer must provide employees with some protection from noise exposure. However, it makes no difference whether a person hears these sounds through headphones or without them. 

Scientists at the University of California spent 22 years (from 1988 to 2010) study: Is the number of young people aged 12 to 19 with hearing problems increasing? And despite the fact that it was during these years that portable players and smartphones with which headphones were used became widespread, scientists did not reveal a significant prevalence of deafness or partial hearing loss in adolescents. Over all years of the study, this percentage was approximately the same. This means that the spread of the habit of listening to music on headphones did not seriously affect the hearing of the subjects.

Another one like this study was conducted in the USA on people from 20 to 69 years old. Scientists conducted tests in 1999–2004, and then again in 2011–2012. The aim of the study was to test whether there was any significant decline in hearing in the population over ten years. As a result, scientists concluded that on average, hearing acuity decreased by 2% - and most likely this was caused by age-related changes, since hearing inevitably deteriorates over the years. 

Swedish scientists also decided to conduct experiment and measured the hearing acuity of 17-year-olds. During the study, the music volume level that was familiar to the subjects was monitored, as well as the duration of listening. It turned out that teenagers who listen to loud music for a long time experience hearing problems more often than their peers who listened to music softer or for less time. However, here again there was no difference between those who listened to music on headphones and those who did not use them. 

At the same time study, which was conducted in Korea, revealed some pattern between the use of headphones and hearing loss in the population.

Many articles about the dangers of using headphones mention the issue of ear infections. Indeed, if hygiene is not observed, bacteria can accumulate on headphones. And by inserting headphones, we actually we deliver these bacteria in the ears. However, exactly the same effect can come from using not very clean earplugs or hearing aids, so the issue here is less about headphones than about hygiene. 

Thus, there is no fundamental difference between listening to loud sounds through headphones or without them for hearing. If you follow the recommendations of specialists and do not raise the volume above the permissible level, there will be no harm from the headphones. However, most do not follow these recommendations. For example, the noise level in a subway car is already about 80 dB. And to listen to music on headphones, you need to turn up the volume, and this can be dangerous. In addition, it is necessary to maintain hygiene, wipe and disinfect the headphones so that bacteria do not get deep into the ears through them, which not everyone does either. 

Half-truth

What do our verdicts mean?

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