Loud Music is damaging

From Earth Times, December 19, 2005

Ear buds : Whats loud music today may fall on deaf ears tomorrow

Author : Pat Fryer

Playing music on mp3 players, iPods and other portable music players may be catching on but so is the potential of such daily doses of audio through earbuds in damaging hearing says a study. According to Dean Garstecki, anaudiologist at Northwestern University, it could be much worse as ear buds amplify audio signals by six to nine decibels, with even the potential to cause permanent loss of hearing.

The report that appears online on the site of the Newswise wire service hints at damages to hearing that can arise from the increased use of iPods and MP3 players with a need to warn people about it. Garstecki equates the ear buds amplifying ability to "the difference in intensity between the sound made by a vacuum cleaner and of a motorcycle engine". He recommends,"One should use the devices at 60 percent maximum volume no more than an hour daily. Better yet, try muff-type or noise-canceling headphones".

Besides intense sound, the music playing devices of today afford long hours of listening with their extended battery life and huge storage added to the convenience of portability. Garstecki recommends that permanent loss of hearing could be avoided using the old-fashioned headphones or noise-canceling headphones that “eliminate background noise". As per Garstecki the use of noise-canceling phones means that listeners need not crank up the volume and thereby avoid any damage to their hearing.

The ear buds are placed directly inside the ear, which is why they are capable of far more damage than those that rest on the ear. But Garstecki's advise is reminiscent of the response elicited by Walkmans and portable CDplayers in the '80s. But the fact is that more and more devices provide in ear audio signals from mobile phone hands-free head sets to music playingdevices. Garstecki suggests, “We`re seeing the kind of hearing loss in younger people typically found in aging adults. ”.

Garstecki says, “Unfortunately, the ear buds preferred by music listeners are even more likely to cause hearing loss than that associated with the older devices”. With students often seen to be listening to music at 110 to120 decibels, it appears that the researcher may not be wrong in saying thatit is like being at a rock concert all the time. Garstecki, who is the Chairman of the Communication sciences and disorders department observes,“It's enough to cause hearing loss after only about an hour and 15 minutes”.

Garstecki proposes as a solution “the 60 percent/60 minute rule” whereby MP3 devices, iPods and such devices be used for less than an hour a day at below60 percent of the highest volume. The trade off between volume or type of headphones and time spent listening to music seems obvious. “If listeners turn the volume down further and use different headphones, they can increase the amount of time they can listen”, he says. But what is good for the youth is not necessarily fashionable with them, which even the author of the report says could “be a hard sell”.