Earbud, headphone use will cause hearing damage in young people, experts predict

Dawn Russo jokes that she always has worried about her kids’ hearing “because they don’t listen.”

The mom of two from North Babylon said she is very concerned about the time her teens spend listening to music, watching TV and playing video games — through their earbuds.

“They are always in their ears, and when they take them out, they are still blasting,” Russo said.

Experts on Long Island and across the nation expect to see the number of people with hearing loss grow in coming years because many kids spend hours on a daily basis wearing headphones and earbuds connected to phones, video game consoles and tablets.

“In 20 to 30 years, I will predict that you are going to see a tsunami of noise-induced hearing loss of people in their 40s rather than people in their 60s and 70s,” said Dr. Daniel Fink, one of the founders of The Quiet Coalition, a program of Quiet Communities Inc., a Massachusetts-based nonprofit that educates the public about the science of noise and health. “When you are young, you think you are immortal.”

Fink said research shows teens in the U.S. and industrialized countries around the globe are frequently listening to devices wearing earbuds or headphones.

“Many go to sleep to music with earbuds in their ears,” he said. “And they listen at volumes loud enough to cause auditory damage.”

Earbuds can amplify sound

Listening to loud music and other sounds through headphones, whether they are the type that go into your ear or sit on top of your ear, can result in both temporary and permanent hearing loss, experts said.

Whether noise harms your hearing depends on certain factors, such as the loudness, pitch and length of time you are exposed to the noise, said Meagan Babatsikos, an audiologist at ENT and Allergy Associates in Manhasset.

Wearing earbuds can amplify sounds by about 10 decibels as they move through the canal to the eardrum, said Mary Bradley, an audiologist and director of speech and hearing at Stony Brook Medicine.

She said experts used to tell parents that if they could hear music being played through their kids' headphones, it was too loud. “But that’s not true anymore. Even if you can’t hear the sounds [through the headphones], they could cause hearing loss,” she said. 

It's a fear that parents often express to audiologists and other medical professionals, she said.

Playing certain video games at a high volume while wearing earbuds poses risks because they include the crash of cars, the blast of gunfire and other loud noises that go directly into their ears.

A review of studies published in 2022 in the British Medical Journal concluded that more than 1.35 billion teens and young people are at risk of hearing loss because of “unsafe listening practices from use of personal listening devices and attendance at loud entertainment venues.”

A separate study published this month in the journal found that the average sound levels of video games “nearly exceeded or exceeded permissible sound exposure limits” and that gaming could “place many individuals worldwide at risk of permanent hearing loss and/or tinnitus.”

Above sound of motorcycle, subway train

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said sounds 60 decibels and lower typically do not cause any hearing damage. That could include the hum of a refrigerator, a running air conditioner or normal conversation.

In comparison, the roar of a motorcycle is about 95 decibels, and an approaching subway train is 100 decibels — two sounds that can cause hearing loss or damage.

Personal listening devices, such as earbuds and headphones, can go up to 110 decibels and cause hearing loss in less than five minutes, the agency said. Experts said most of the time this is temporary, but can become permanent if done on a long-term basis.

“At first, the hearing loss and tinnitus [ringing or buzzing in the ear] can be temporary, with hearing returning during quiet periods,” Bradley said. “After continuous listening, the effects of noise can result in permanent damage to the ear.”

'Ubiquitous and ever-increasing' use

Hearing loss can occur when cells and membranes in the inner ear are damaged by loud noise, according to the CDC, leading to temporary or permanent hearing loss.

A 2022 study in the Cureus Journal of Medical Science said the occurrence of noise-induced hearing loss is “expanding” in kids and adolescents, connected to personal music players that need earphones or headphones and have “powerful sound tones.”

Authors said their review of existing studies show the use of these audio devices poses a threat of hearing loss and that further research is needed “given the ubiquitous and ever-increasing nature of their consumption.”

Earbuds have the capacity to create even more hearing damage than over-the-ear headphones because they are located at the entrance of the ear canal, said Bradley.

“Smaller spaces amplify sounds,” she said.

Many phones and other personal listening devices have decibel readers and provide a pop-up warning when the volume is too loud, Babatsikos said.

“I encourage [people] to listen to that warning and lower the volume,” she said.

Babatsikos said the waiting room in her Nassau County office is often full of young patients wearing earbuds. She saw at least one patient who lost hearing due to listening to loud music through his earbuds over a period of several years.

“I unfortunately expect to see more cases like this in the coming years,” she said.

By Lisa L. Colangelo

lisa.colangelo@newsday.com@lisalcolangelo

Lisa joined Newsday as a staff writer in 2019. She previously worked at amNewYork, the New York Daily News and the Asbury Park Press covering politics, government and general assignment.