Cautions to headphone users

ASTUDY conducted on music volume of headphone that people use in a busy street showed many people increased the volume because of the environment noise. Any sound over 85 decibels is considered to be dangerous to the ears and your hearing. Majority of people use dangerous levels of volume in noisy, public areas. People can protect their hearing by keeping the volume down on personal audio devices and also with short listening breaks.

The ears are extremely fragile instruments. Sound waves enter the ear, causing the ear drums to vibrate. These vibrations get sent to the cochlea in the inner ear, where fluid carries them to rows of hair cells. Thousands and thousands of tiny nerves called ‘hair cells’ line the inside of the snail-shaped structure, the cochlea. Each hair cell is responsible for picking up a different sound. All of the hair cells work in concert to code the incoming sound and send it on to the brain where sound is heard and understood.

When all of a sudden, an extremely loud sound enters the ear and the cochlea, the hair cells are hit with sound so hard that the hair cells are bent, broken, and in some cases, totally sheared off. Once this cochlear damage occurs, the damage is done. Hair cells in the cochlea are not able to regenerate themselves.

Unhealthy volumes of sound are unknowingly hurting your hearing in the long run. The effect of gradual hearing loss can accumulate over time, but because this happens over many years it is very hard to spot and seek medical help soon enough. Hearing advocates are pressing for people to 60-60 rule; the volume should be kept at no higher than 60 percent of the maximum and that it should be used for no more than 60 minutes a day.