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Do headphones damage your hearing?
Results so far:
| Yes | 68% | 595 votes | Total: 869 votes | |
| No | 32% | 274 votes |
Yes
by Patrick Sills
Created on: April 07, 2010 Last Updated: July 30, 2010
When asked whether or not headphones damage your hearing, I have an answer. At the volume I listened to music through them, you better believe it. As a teenager growing up in the 1970s, eight-track players were considered state-of-the art audio equipment. I had headphones attached so that my parents wouldn’t complain about having to listen to Jimi Hendrix, Grand Funk Railroad, or Black Sabbath as they tried to carry on a conversation. And naturally, this music sounded best at Volume 10.
In addition, from the time the Beatles first appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show when I was all of 4, I wanted to play in a rock and roll band, and by the time I reached 15, this dream became a reality. The hard rock of this period called for being played loudly, as one could imagine. As time went on, some of the bands I played in began to do home recording, which oftentimes required the use of headphones in order to clearly hear everything that was going on.
On one such occasion in the spring of 1982, a band I was playing with set out to record a demo tape so we could promote ourselves. We made use of an independent recording studio. This particular band played very hard rock that employed screaming vocals along the lines of AC/DC. As we were playing a song, the engineer decided to crank the volume all the way up on the mixing console just prior to one of these screaming vocal parts. As the vocalist’s shrilling part entered my set of headphones, a clear-colored liquid literally blew out of my right ear! Immediately afterwards, I could hear nothing out of that ear except a high-pitched ringing that landed somewhere between a high A flat and A natural note. I experienced something similar a few years before when I pumped a bicycle tire up too much and it exploded.
At any rate, I feared the worst: a perforated eardrum. I went to an ear specialist a couple of days later and much to my relief learned that I merely blew wax out of my ear. Centuries earlier Sir Issac Newton proclaimed that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Thus, the ringing was caused by additional wax being blown against my eardrum. The doctor poked around with different instruments and eventually removed the wax, but the ringing never completely went away, and I experience tinnitus to this day.
It isn’t particularly noticeable until I find myself in a quiet room with no other background noise. When this occurs, I hear a constant ringing that never subsides. Moreover, my place of employment requires annual hearing tests, and to no surprise, I am described as having significant hearing loss. This becomes very evident when I have to ask my wife and /or daughter to repeat what they’ve just said. I can hear, mind you. It’s just that a phrase such as, “I have soccer practice tonight” will come out sounding like, “ I had a sucker with rats tonight.”
The style of popular music that young people listen has changed, but the potential for hearing damage through headphones certainly hasn't. Every medical professional will concur, and well, I'm living proof.
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No
by ronoc dnalien
Created on: November 20, 2008
From all around sound travels in all directions from its source. Our ears our sensitive to sound because our ears are designed to react with the energy of sound. Sound is an energy that is conducted through a medium to somewhere other than its source. In this debate, I am referring to headphones as the source of sound. In its close proximity to the ear drum it as the potential to cause damage, but then again so does everything else we interact with.
A fast sports car can increase the experience of pleasure when driving. An alcoholic drink can ease the tension when socialising. A good set of headphones can concentrate the pleasure of music when listening. Been able to listen to sound in such a personal way is one of the great gifts technology as bestowed on the average person. It is a device that offers all the benefits of audio to anyone who desires to hear, without restrictions of place and time. The listening of music, for example, with headphones envelopes one of our senses in a world that can take our whole being there as if by magic.
Headphones do not damage hearing, the same way guns and bullets do not kill people, the same way that gambling does not cause financial ruin. A sharp some bound with a vine on the end of a stick swung by someone with intent, can kill, the point is intent. Headphones are a device which can be abused to cause harm. By increasing the output, energy of sound through a headphone the eardrum that absorbs this energy can become damaged. Sounds above a certain decibel will affect the effectiveness of the eardrum. Damage done is a result of intensity combined with time. It is when an individual overdoes it that damage occurs.
What is the argument here; does anyone not agree that when someone chooses to overdo something, that it causes damage. What is the debate; has personal headphones the potential to harm a persons hearing, well of course it does, is my hearing going to be damaged just because I use headphones, well that completely depends on how headphones are used. It is my argument that headphones can be used in such a way as to gain maximum pleasure and advantage from them without any adverse effects. It is my argument that common sense should be enough of a qualification for people to avoid any potential harm from using headphones.
Lets stop these silly debates, lets move on. Personal responsibility spread it around. I personally dislike the way music is being constantly compressed into smaller blocks of digital information. By taking away the analogue sound wave of analogue recording, we are producing reproductions that at lower volumes of sound have a greater potential to damage the effectiveness of our eardrums. The sound is becoming sharper, pulsing against the eardrum unlike the needle vibrations amplified dragging across the vinyl grooves, a richer sound more rounded and less damaging.
Music holds a special bond that runs deep within us. It plays to our conscious minds and our sub-conscious minds. Perhaps with current methods of reproduction listeners need to raise the volume just to feel the feeling, if that is the case do not blame the headphones.
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