Ringing of the ears called tinnitus after exposure to loud music.
Ringing of the ears called tinnitus after exposure to loud music.
But just 8 percent of those youngsters surveyed actually considered tinnitus a problem.
“It’s considered no big deal to go to a concert or a club, experience ringing in your ears, because then it goes away, right?” says the report’s author, Roland Eavey, director of pediatric otolaryngology at Mass Eye and Ear Infirmary in Boston and a professor at Harvard Medical School. “But it’s cumulative. And people don’t realize it.”
Northwestern University audiologist Dana Garstecki found that many students listened to their iPods at 110 to 120 decibels, the same range as a power saw, jet plane and rock concert. Garstecki blames at least part of the problem on the device’s design. With buds tucked directly into the ear, song volume is boosted by as much as six to nine decibels, Garstecki found.
“That’s the difference in intensity between the sound made by a vacuum cleaner and the sound of a motorcycle engine,” he says. “That’s a sound level that’s equivalent to the measures that are made at rock concerts. And it’s enough to cause hearing loss after only about an hour and 15 minutes.”
Garstecki offers two solutions to stave off hearing loss, including the use of older-style ear phones and limiting listening time to an hour a day at no more than 60 percent of maximum volume.
Eavey’s rule of thumb? If the person next to you can hear music from your earphones, it’s just too loud.
But even with Who guitarist Pete Townshend’s warning for music lovers to beware of the long-term effects of headphone use — something that’s decimated the 60-year-old’s own ears — whether youngsters will heed the advice of their parents and doctors is anyone’s guess.
Middle-schoolers Donohue and Johnson — who’ve both experienced ringing in their ears after lengthy doses of everything from Blink 182 to the Black Eyed Peas — aren’t worried about going deaf. Neither is Wickens, who lulls herself to sleep wearing her iPod Nano.
“At least we’ll know why it happened,” she chuckles ruefully, sparking laughter around the lunch table.
Still, Eavey hopes earplugs become more widely accepted — like seat belts, sunblock and bicycle helmets — particularly among the young.
“I think we’re on the edge of an epidemic,” he says. “It’s entirely preventable. And once the damage happens, it’s irreversible.”
