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  • - Look around the city and you'll notice the headphones.

  • Everyone wears them, usually for hours at a time.

  • And all our moms warn us, not to listen

  • to our headphones too loudly.

  • But how bad is it really for us to listen all day?

  • How much do I really need to worry about my ears?

  • So of course, our moms are right, it turns out

  • loud music damages your hearing but you likely

  • won't notice any tangible effects until it's too late.

  • In fact, any persistent noise effects your ears.

  • - Can headphones cause hearing loss?

  • Absolutely.

  • - That's Dr. Samantha Anne, an ENT who specializes

  • in pediatric care so if you're blasting music

  • or even podcasts all day long, you're going to

  • be putting your ears at risk.

  • And you can't fix hearing loss.

  • - Once you lose to hearing loss because of noise

  • exposure, there's no going back.

  • You don't repair it, there's no getting it back.

  • - I called Dr. John Oghalai, an ENT and chair at USC

  • to learn more about how we're all ruining our hearing.

  • - So you can damage the sensory hair cells in the inner ear

  • or you can damage the nerves.

  • The nerve that carries the sound from

  • the hair cell to the brain.

  • You know if you listen to sounds that are too loud,

  • then they die and as far as we know, they don't regenerate.

  • - You also probably won't even know you're damaging

  • your hearing because it often happens slowly and subtly.

  • Doctors often suggest a hearing test to establish

  • a baseline but I'm sure you haven't had a recent

  • hearing test, I definitely haven't.

  • The only real obvious sign of damage is once

  • you have ringing in your ears, aka, tinnitus.

  • That's not good because that means your hearing

  • has been significantly damaged.

  • Plus ringing is obviously super annoying.

  • Alright, so we're killing our baby ear hairs

  • and maybe damaging our nerve endings, fantastic.

  • But is all sound bad for us?

  • That can't be possible, right?

  • - If you're listening to a really loud sound,

  • the time you can listen to is less or if it's a medium

  • level sound, then you can listen to it much longer.

  • - He and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration

  • have some concrete decibel recommendations.

  • If you listen to something at 85 decibels for example,

  • you can safely do so for eight hours.

  • This is like hearing a garbage disposal, blender

  • or dishwasher for eight hours, it's not so bad.

  • At 95 decibels, you only get four safe hours of listening.

  • That's slightly louder than

  • a motorcycle that's 25 feet away.

  • Imagine that for four hours, it's brutal.

  • You want to almost never hear a chainsaw

  • which can top out at 120 decibels.

  • Now I recognize that most of us

  • don't think in decibel levels.

  • I'm impressed if you do but if you're curious,

  • apps do exist to measure your decibel level outputs,

  • although, there are other ways to measure

  • your decibel outputs that are more abstract.

  • General guidelines keep it at a comfortable level.

  • Should not be heard around you.

  • And then if you take it off and you're hearing

  • ringing or the sound is a little bit muffled,

  • like when you come out of a huge concert, for example

  • and you have that little bit of ringing and muffled

  • sound for awhile, that's actually damage to the hearing.

  • Of course our headphones can effect this problem too.

  • Noise isolation, which is when our headphones block

  • out ambien sound because of the seal they create

  • can help reduce the need for louder music.

  • Noise cancellation, which are electronically counteracts

  • outside noise can help to.

  • The two taken together might make a big difference.

  • When used properly, to lower the levels of decibels

  • that you're playing, noise canceling headphones

  • are not a bad thing, they could be helpful.

  • Doctor Oghalai says regular old earbuds

  • might be the worst as does Dr. Anne.

  • The type of earbuds that kind of sit in the bowl

  • of your ear that you can still hear outside sounds

  • are probably in my mind, some of

  • the worst ones you could have.

  • Both agree that noise cancellation can help,

  • although, if you're using noise cancellation

  • as an excuse to tune everything out

  • and then turn up your music, don't do that.

  • That's really bad.

  • Okay, so I wanted to see how loudly I listened to music.

  • So we went out into the world to see how loud

  • New York City truly is.

  • We used a sound level meter to detect the outside

  • volume level and then looked at how I adjusted

  • my volume on my iPhone in turn.

  • We tested one over the ear pair, one noise canceling,

  • one noise isolating, Airpods, noise canceling

  • earbuds and on ear headphones.

  • The subway was super loud whenever trains were present

  • and sometimes even reached up to 100 decibels

  • but it wasn't too bad when there were

  • no trains in the station.

  • The outside city was about as loud as when there were

  • no subways in the stations but sometimes it did

  • get a little bit louder, like when an ambulance drove by.

  • And the office was always more or less silent.

  • Obviously, this all effected how loudly

  • I needed to turn up my music.

  • But all the headphones stuck to a clear pattern of use,

  • regardless of where I was.

  • I had to turn my regular, over the ear headphones

  • up the highest as well as my Airpods.

  • The noise isolating headphones and noise canceling

  • headphones really did a good job keeping external

  • sounds out which led me to keep the volume lower

  • than I had to with other pairs.

  • But even with these noise canceling and noise isolating

  • headphones, the subway station volume was nearly

  • double that of the office.

  • This all makes sense but as the doctors warned,

  • we could easily over do it with volume,

  • especially when the headphones are able to keep sounds out.

  • All we can do to take care of our ears is be mindful.

  • Maybe give up on your vanity and wear earplugs at concerts

  • because you never, ever want to hear that ringing.

  • If you're a parent, you can often set volume

  • controls for your kids so they don't

  • exceed a certain decibel level.

  • - It's okay to use the headphones but just

  • be smart about it, be sensible.

  • Dr. Oghalai thinks the future might actually

  • be bright when it comes to hearing loss.

  • Better headphone technology could reduce

  • the amount of damage we do.

  • It's actually gonna get better over our lifetimes

  • because I think headphones have gotten better.

  • If he has hope, so do I.

  • Hey, do you have anything you've been wondering about

  • related to tech and myths maybe?

  • Leave them in the comments below because

  • we're always looking for ideas.

  • Also, we just launched a new a verge science YouTube page

  • that you should absolutely go check out so go do that.

- Look around the city and you'll notice the headphones.

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