Many students use music to occupy themselves between classes, to increase energy while exercising and to blur outside noise while studying. This useful and seeming harmless habit may actually cause hearing loss later in life.
"Listening to iPods for hours at a time or turning them up to compensate for a noisy environment are among the most dangerous things students can do in terms of hearing," said Richard Salvi, a professor of communicative disorders and sciences at the Center for Hearing and Deafness.
Noise levels of 85 decibels (dB) and above on the A scale are potential dangers, but many headphones reach 120 dB on maximum volume, according to Salvi.
"To put it more into perspective, the noise level of construction zones can go up to 160 dB," Salvi said.
Students who listen to loud music may sometimes experience stiffness of eardrums and ringing that takes time to go away, both signs that the sterile cilia, the parts of the human ear that convert noise to sound, have been damaged.
"Music is a very big part of my life. I just don't feel right if I'm not listening to something in my idle time." said Ramon Rodriguez, a junior psychology major. "But I don't go crazy and turn up the bass to the point where I can't understand the music anymore."
Many students are unaware that their music is loud, as auditory fatigue causes the volume to appear normal, Salvi said.
Students who use ear buds at low dB for short periods of time aren't generally considered to be damaging their ears. Whether or not music is playing too loudly out of ear buds can be gauged by testing whether or not others can hear it.
"There is currently no way of repairing the sterile cilia of a person's ear once it's been damaged. The only thing you can do to avoid this is just to not listen to music so loudly," Salvi said.
It's important to try to measure how loud headphones may get. No matter what kind a person uses, ear buds or the trendier earmuff headphones, they can all be equally dangerous if their auditory potential exceeds 90 dB, according to Salvi
If students feel pressure around their ears after wearing headphones, they've been listening either too loudly or too long.
Salvi warned that damage might not occur immediately but later in life or progressively and thus students should be concerned if they've felt these symptoms, even if they haven't experienced hearing loss.
"I listen to my music on max all the time on my headphones, but they aren't that loud. I've never had ringing in my ears after using them," said Andrew Yensen, a junior biology major. "I know when it gets too loud. Besides, I don't want to be that guy on the bus or something that everyone can hear what he's listening to."
Photo: Courtesy of Laron Fomby
