Does listening to music with headphones affect your hearing?

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  • Source:Md Hearing Aids
From junior high school to now in college, I have been used to reading or wearing headphones to listen to music when I am bored. Even motion sickness can be relieved by listening to music, and I am used to turning the volume very loud. I want to know if this really affects my hearing. It doesn’t feel very noticeable...

Does listening to music with headphones affect your hearing?


The impact is quite large. When you wear headphones for a long time, no matter which way they are, they are close to your ears, allowing the sound to be transmitted directly to your ears. Because the sound is relatively concentrated and rarely dispersed, people wearing headphones will actually hear loud sounds. In this way, after a certain period of adaptation, the sensitivity to sound will decrease.


And being close to the ears, the sound is transmitted not only through the vibration of the earphones, but then to the air and then into the ears. A large part of relatively natural sound is transmitted directly to the eardrum and ear bones through vibration. The sound produced by vibration is much louder than that transmitted through the air, which will also gradually weaken the ear's sensitivity to sound.

Secondly, the ears are actually protective, including the auricle, the hair in the ear, and the oil in the ear. Putting it on or in the ear will bypass these protections and even cause some damage to these areas.

The performance of modern headphones is getting better, and high and low sounds can be better expressed. But similarly, for audio, too high and too low sounds are actually a test for the ears. Especially sound transmitted directly through vibration may cause direct damage to the delicate structure of the ear.

Any sound above 85 decibels can cause hearing damage, because this damage depends not only on the volume, but also on the length of exposure. If exposed to a noisy environment for a long time, the hearing hair cells will be mechanically damaged by excessive compression. And the damage is irreversible. The principle of listening to music with headphones: the 60/60 principle, which means that the use of headphones does not exceed 60% of the total volume and the duration does not exceed 60 minutes. If you must listen on the road, try to use over-ear headphones instead of plug-in headphones.


After all, the harm of headphones is relatively small, and people don’t wear headphones for a long time. So generally, wear headphones, then take them off and adapt to the natural environment.There will be no problem with hearing. But after all, accidents still happen. Moreover, hearing damage is more likely to result from failure to protect oneself properly, leading to some problems that directly damage the hearing. At this time, the harm of headphones is just a trigger.