Unless you’ve been trapped under a polar bear in the Yukon for the past four years, you’ve probably noticed the iPod insurgency in America. One can hardly walk 10 feet on campus without spotting a dozen Pod People, but recent concerns over hearing damage could force chronic iPod users to unplug and take notice.
Everyone has seen “that guy” in class. The one who sits there with his hood up blasting Something Corporate so loud you can mouth the chorus to “Punk Rock Princess.” What he, and most other iPod owners aren’t considering, however, are the long-term effects of listening to music at what could be literally deafening volumes.
“Whatever sounds you put into your ears, if they’re too loud, they’re going to cause some
damage. … The problem with the iPods is that people tend to turn them up too loud,” said Ron Tate of the Sonus Hearing Care Center in Eugene.
Tate, who has a master’s degree in audiology, said that because there is so much environmental noise these days, people are turning up their mp3 players to block out surrounding sounds, but health practitioners are wondering whether this a safe solution.
According to the Dangerous Decibels public health campaign, sponsored in part by OHSU and OMSI, people should not expose their ears to sounds at a constant level of more than 85 decibels for more than eight hours at a time, 85 decibels being comparable to busy city traffic. For every three decibels the sound level goes up beyond 85, the recommended permissible exposure time drops by half.
An iPod manufactured in the U.S. is capable of producing about 115 decibels of sound at maximum volume, which is roughly equivalent to a jackhammer or a rock concert without earplugs. At this volume, the permissible continuous exposure time is listed at about 30 seconds, according to Dangerous Decibels. If someone listens to even one whole song on an iPod at full blast, it’s like having a rock concert compressed into their ear for the duration of the song. This can create a lot of undue stress on the internal mechanisms of the ear.
“Many people do not realize what they are doing to their ears until it’s too late,” said audiologist R. Craig Ford of the Eugene Hearing and Speech Center. “If you develop enough hearing loss due to noise exposure you could have speech problems.”
Ford says he has noticed a slight increase in the number of young people coming to his clinic compared with when he started practicing in the early 1980s. He says that people should try to be proactive about hearing problems in order to prevent greater damage later in life by staying attune to indicators of hearing loss.
Symptoms of sound damage or over-exposure include increased sensitivity to noise; tinnitus, which is a ringing or buzzing in the ears; pain in the ears after being in loud places; and voices becoming muffled.
The impact of iPods could possibly be lowered through equipment choice as well. Dr. Ford points out that because earbuds do not make a “perfect seal” around the ear they can let in a lot of ambient noise, causing the listener to turn up the volume. Instead of the earbuds, Dr. Ford suggests people use full head phones, which block out unwanted noise and aren’t located as close to the ear drum, thereby alleviating some of the stress on the ear.
Noise is still noise, though, and the safest way to avoid hearing loss is by turning down the volume. In France, regulations have been implemented making it illegal for iPods to exceed 100-decibel capability. But until changes are made at the manufacturing level in the U.S., audiophiles need to be responsible and adjust their listening habits.