Poor headphone use can lead to lasting hearing loss. Are headphones or earbuds better? And can noise-cancelling headphones help?
Can headphones damage your hearing?
Listening to headphones too loudly is one of the biggest dangers to your hearing the NHS says. It is therefore important to develop good listening habits.
Excess noise can lead to hearing loss or tinnitus (ringing in your ears linked to hearing loss), and if exposure is particularly loud or prolonged, this can be permanent and untreatable. So it’s important to look after your ears.
The NHS recommends:
- Listen at no more than 60% of the maximum volume on your device.
- Don’t use headphones continuously for more than an hour at a time, taking a break of at least five minutes every hour.
It can be hard to know what counts as ‘too loud’, as you won’t experience the impact immediately.
It’s best to start listening at a low volume, then raise it just enough to hear things comfortably. If you turn it up higher than the minimum recommended, even if temporarily, your ears will adapt. This means you’ll get used to the louder volume and may forget to turn it back down.
If you find yourself turning up the volume to drown out external noise, it’s probably time for a new pair of headphones. Opt for a noise-isolating or noise-cancelling set, which will help block out background noise so you can hear what you’re playing clearly at a lower volume.
How do I know if I’m listening too loudly?
Trying to monitor your exposure in decibels is usually impractical in practice, because audio player volume controls don’t usually give this information.
Smartphone apps are available that can tell you in decibels how loud sounds are, but some are more reliable than others and they’re usually designed for sounds in your immediate environment rather than checking the decibels produced by your headphones.
Setting your smartphone’s volume limiter to 60% of the maximum to match the NHS advice is a good idea, but you can’t rely on this alone as it’s only a guide. In most cases your smartphone won’t know exactly what pair of headphones you’re using. Some headphones can sound much louder than others at the same volume on your device.
What should I do if I’m concerned that my hearing has been damaged?
There’s no silver bullet to knowing if you’re listening to your headphones too loudly. If, after exposure, your hearing is dulled or ringing, then it may have been damaged. You should take a long break away from excess noise to minimise the risk of this becoming permanent and let the sensory cells in your ears recover.
Talk to one of our audiologists today and book your FREE hearing test.