The Most Common Causes
Hearing loss comes on as a result of prolonged exposure to loud noise. Such exposure commonly happens in our places of employment. A broad range of industries such as construction, mining, agriculture, manufacturing and nightlife can all be particularly risky. Many of our most popular pastimes pose just as much danger, whether it is frequenting massive sporting events or loud concerts or even aerobics classes. And in the cities and suburbs noise pollution is everywhere, from trains and traffic to construction machinery to radios coming out of storefronts.
Many of these diverse risk factors have one thing in common: the volume of the source of the noise is out of our control. There are regulations and guidelines in place across some industries that make it so that perhaps someone somewhere can adjust a noise level in some of these examples. But mostly, not really. Who gets to choose how loud the combined din of multiple construction sites in close proximity to each other really is? Who really gets to set the volume on the roar of an excited crowd in a stadium? It is up to each of us to create responsible habits to limit our exposure to such potentially damaging sounds.
No One is Immune From Hearing Loss
About 14% of everyone in the U.S. aged 18 years old or older suffers from some detectable degree of hearing loss. The ratio of people affected increases steadily with age until once we are looking at people 75 years old and older an astonishing more than half of everyone has hearing loss.
But just because hearing loss appears most frequently in the elderly does not mean that children are not at risk. On a physical level, except in the most extremely rare cases, hearing loss is always a result of the same set of injuries. We hear thanks to the many, many very tiny hairs in our inner ears. Soundwaves cause them to vibrate against our hearing drums. And it is our hearing drums that then trigger a message to our brains practically instantaneously to decipher, attribute, and spatialize the source of the sound.
But these microscopic hairs in our inner ears are very delicate. Loud sounds can kill them. The greater number of hairs that are injured, the more severe the degree of hearing loss. And such injury is permanent and irreversible. So older people suffer greater degrees of hearing loss simply because they have had more time exposed to dangerous sound levels, more time for the consequences of passive decisions to catch up with them.
That does not mean that kids are immune. And the greatest threat to hearing health facing kids today is within their control: their headphones and earbuds.
Forming Healthy Habits
Whether it is the gunfire and special effects that make a video game feel immersive or the intensity of a powerful musical performance, the desire to crank up our headphones is almost instinctive. When finding pleasure in escaping to an alternative reality, of course we only want to intensify the experience. Without thinking, we jack up the volume.
But pediatric audiologists are cautioning parents to take note and kids to think again. The audiologists are finding more and more kids with worse hearing than they expect. They suspect that poor habits about the use of headphones and earbuds are to blame. The simplest healthy habit to adopt is to always remain aware, in every context, whatever the sound source, louder volumes mean shorter safe durations.
For example, when maxed out, an iPhone’s volume can reach 102 dB, same as a leaf blower. That is a safe volume to listen to your headphones for 10 minutes. Anything more than 10 minutes at maximum volume will likely cause damage and you will likely not notice this damage at first. It is the compounded effect of the damage brought on by unhealthy habits that gradually arises.
But remember sound levels are not measured in a linear fashion.
The sam iPhone mentioned above, played at 70% volume, 82 dB, is safe for eight hours a day. Turn that up a little to 80%, that’s 89 dB. That volume becomes risky after just 90 minutes exposure. Given the ubiquitous popularity of earbuds and headphones, and given the profound consequences of hearing loss, it is essential that parents monitor their kids’ exposure time and teach them the importance of forming healthy habits.