Concerns about young people listening to loud music are hardly new. For as long as there have been headphones, parents have chastised their children about playing music too loud, and the children have done their best to ignore it. Playing loud music is considered a right of passage and an emotional outlet, drowning out the many minor troubles of the world.
The normalisation of loud music, though, risks masking its genuine dangers. The proliferation of smartphones and powerful headphones has coincided with a dramatic rise in hearing loss among younger people. Without confronting the issue, the NHS and society as a whole may be on the brink of an aural health crisis.
Modern music
While headphones and stereos may not be new, young people today are listening to more music than ever. The arrival of YouTube and streaming services such as Spotify has opened up a world of diverse music, available as the touch of a button (or the tap of a screen). Tastes in music have changed, too, with bass-heavy electronic music dominating the charts, and readymade to be cranked up to maximum volume.
Not only has the way we listen to music changed; the hardware has changed too. Headphone brands like Beats and Skullcandy prioritise high volume and big bass to match the most popular genres, while cheap in-ear headphones come packaged with phones and MP3 players. Despite the price tags, many of these popular brands offer low quality sound, meaning that the volume has to be turned up to hear the music more clearly.
Gigs and performances are also a major issue. Many gigs push volumes well above the 100 dB limit: a rock concert for instance will reach about 115 dB, a threshold at which we can only safely listen for seven minutes. This can get even louder the closer you are to the stage. Yet despite the fact that most musicians now opt to wear earplugs – and those that didn’t are experiencing hearing loss themselves – most concertgoers consider this to be spoiling the experience, and making them look uncool.
It isn’t just the younger generation who are falling into this trap, though. Many of us listen to music or podcasts on the commute to work, where the train or bus can often be noisy. Without noise cancelling headphones, many people compensate for this background noise by cranking up the volume to match. This is a particular issue with podcasts, which are dialogue heavy and so more difficult to hear from moment to moment.
Hearing problems
To current science at least, most hearing damage is permanent and irreparable. Tiny hair cells in your ear will move as a result of vibrations, and pass these signals onto the brain, allowing you to interpret sounds. But they can become overworked by prolonged exposure to loud noise, to the point that they can eventually die. Once this happens, they will not regenerate – and you only have about 16,000 of them from birth.
Very loud sounds can also damage the nerve which transmits these signals, causing a more systemic form of hearing damage that is more difficult to detect. Symptoms of both of these problems include ringing in the ears, muffled sound, and an inability to hear whispered speech or delicate sounds. Serious damage can lead to tinnitus (a permanent ringing in the ears) and varying levels of deafness, which can be treated but cannot be fixed.
In 2015, the World Health Organisation issued a warning to young people, alleging that nearly half of 12-35 year olds were repeatedly exposing themselves to dangerous noise levels. The charity Action on Hearing Loss meanwhile estimates that incidences of hearing loss in the UK will increase by more than 40% over the next 17 years, a rise of 15.6 million people. This will create a major burden on the NHS, and dramatically decrease many people’s quality of life.
Legal limits
Some efforts have been made to limit the impact of loud music on young people. In 2013 the European Union instigated two maximum limits for volume settings on ‘personal music players’, including MP3 players and phones. These portable devices are required to warn users when passing above 85 decibels, and cannot exceed 100 decibels in total.
While the 100 dB limit cannot be modified, the 85 dB limit can be turned off entirely on Apple devices. Devices from the rest of the world and personal computers meanwhile do not feature any such limit. 120 dB, the common maximum elsewhere in the world, is roughly equivalent to a plane taking off nearby, and has the potential to cause permanent hearing damage.
For those employees who listen to music at work, such as in desk jobs or creative work, the burden of responsibility is a bit less clear. As playing music is a personal choice, it may be regarded as entirely outside the remit of the organisation to impose a restriction. By the same token, it is unlikely that an employee listening to very loud music is going to be able to fully concentrate on their work.
If the volume of music is deemed to be a safety risk because of the task being undertaken, rather than the music, an employer would be within their right to take action over the volume, or ban the playing of music altogether. Ambient noise in the workplace is a much more common contributor to hearing loss, and is restricted by both average and peak measurements of sound, with different mandatory actions needed to protect workers in different scenarios. The HSE provides comprehensive guidelines for controlling risk in noisy workplaces.
Paying the price
When it comes to the headphones themselves, different pairs will have entirely different capabilities in terms of volume. As an example, the headphones I’m currently wearing have a maximum sensitivity of 126 dB – and have been a real shock when the volume has been left up on the computer! Variations in volume, sound quality and sound dynamics – e.g. how the lows, mids and highs are balanced – can also impact on the volume you feel is necessary to ‘appreciate’ all aspects of a song, and all tend to improve as prices increase.
Aside from spending more money on top quality headphones, you can invest in noise cancelling ones. While these are more expensive than the cheapest brands, they are becoming more affordable, and their chief benefit is fairly obvious. By blocking out much of the ambient noise around you, they allow you to hear more of the music without having to crank up the volume. This is likely to make you appreciate the songs more, as well as keeping your ears safe. Just remember to take them off when you’re crossing the road!
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The statistics prove that hearing loss is a serious issue, and one that often goes unnoticed until it’s far too late. Investing in better headphones is one thing, but we also need to do what we can to raise awareness of the issue, and impress on kids the importance of preserving their hearing, in a way that doesn’t spoil the fun. Educating them in gentler music than today’s charts might not be a bad start.