Using an iPod, or other MP3 player, can lead to hearing loss. That’s what expert Brian Filgor of the Children’s Hospital of Boston is saying, and you know what? I think that it makes sense. How do you play and listen to those MP3s which you download over the Internet or rip from your own CD? Why, you shove earbuds directly into your ears, aiming them right into your ear canals and up to your ear drum, and you put the music on loud enough to not only hear it but, according to Filgor, to do plenty of damage even if you don’t play it at a level you consider loud, or for hours on end.
According to Filgor, there is plenty of evidence that sustained noise causes hearing loss. For example, eight hours of noise at just 85 decibels can cause a measurable problem. And, says Filgor, every single MP3 player he’s examined produced music well in access of 85 decibels. At 88 decibels it takes just four hours of listening to cause the same problem.
Don’t think it’s a problem? Try telling that to Dr. William Martin, of the Oregon Health and Science University Tinnitus Clinic. Says Williams, “Our own research shows that 16 percent of 6-to 19-year-olds have early signs of hearing loss at the range most readily damaged by loud sounds.”
Points out Filgor, “Every time you increase a sound level by three decibels, listening for half as long will produce the same amount of hearing loss. The kid who cuts my grass uses an iPod. The lawn mower noise is about 80 to 85 decibels. If he likes listening to his iPod 20 decibels above that, he’s in the range of 100-105 decibels. At that sound level he shouldn’t listen for more than eight to 15 minutes.”
Eight to fifteen minutes, got that? How long do you listen to your iPod?
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>I wonder if this applies to ear buds/ear pieces used with cell phones as well
Yes. I read somewhere that the problem is that those ear buds don’t filter the environmental noise, so one is inclined to increase the volume too much.
I wonder if this applies to ear buds/ear pieces used with cell phones as well?
say, watt???