Music on phones is giving teens tinnitus

BLASTING music through headphones from mobile phones is leaving more than one in four young people with serious hearing damage, warn scientists.

A study of 11 to 17-year-olds found their ‘risky listening habits’ mean many suffer from tinnitus – a permanent ringing or buzzing in the ears.

They also had heightened sensitivity to loud noise, a sign the nerves that transmit sounds to the brain may have been permanently damaged.

Researchers fear it signals a surge in deafness among young people.

The causes of the affliction – more typically seen in over-50s – included listening to loud music on personal devices and going to noisy parties.

The Canadian and Brazilian researchers studied 170 students under 18 and found that 28 per cent already experience ‘chronic persistent tinnitus’.

Further tests on the Brazilian students found those experiencing tinnitus had significantly reduced tolerance for loud noise. When auditory nerves are damaged, brain cells boost the sensitivity to their remaining inputs, which can make sounds seem louder – a sign of serious hearing impairment or deafness in later life.

Professor Larry Roberts, of McMaster University in Canada, said: ‘The levels of sound exposure that are quite common place in our environment, particularly among youth, appear to be sufficient to produce hidden cochlear [inner ear] injuries.

‘It’s a growing problem and I think it’s going to get worse.

‘There is a major public health challenge coming down the road in terms of difficulties with hearing.’

The study, co-written by the Sao Paulo School of Medicine and published in journal Scientific Reports, found that listening to music with headphones was ‘near universal’ in those studied. Around nine out of ten had attended ‘parties, shows, raves with loud sounds’.