Having access to electronic devices, including cell phones, that can emit increasingly loud sounds, young people risk long-term damage to their hearing. And with the pandemic, the multiplication of videoconferences and distance courses has only increased the risks, warns the DD Tamara Mijovic, otologist at the McGill University Health Center.
Posted at 7:00 a.m.
“We are hours on our devices with headphones on. For school, video games, to listen to music, movies… We are far from what we saw a few years ago, when we essentially had headphones on our ears to listen to music on a Walkman”, explains the DD Mijovic.
On this Hearing Day, the DD Mijovic sent a letter to The Press in which she pleads for better prevention in hearing health. “It is a call for prevention. To avoid the long-term effects of too much exposure,” she says.
The most recent data from Health Canada, dating from 2019, shows that half of young people aged 19 to 29 report having had symptoms, such as tinnitus, in their lifetime. For the vast majority of them, the tinnitus is only temporary. But the DD Mijovic explains that you have to be concerned about the long-term effects of exposure to too loud sounds.
Especially since with the pandemic, young people have switched to distance education, at the same time increasing the number of hours spent with headphones on their ears. “Young people’s ears are often used eight or more hours a day,” she says.
More and more powerful
Devices, especially smart phones, are also emitting increasingly loud sounds. While the old walkmans emitted sounds of 100 decibels (dB) maximum, some smartphones today can reach 120 dB.
“We live in an increasingly noisy society and our ears are constantly solicited […]adds the DD Mijovic. The danger is trying to drown out ambient noise by turning up the volume on our headphones. »
Data exists on safe thresholds of exposure to sounds. Many studies have been carried out for decades, especially on factory workers, explains the DD Mijovic. For example, it has been shown that continuous exposure to 85 dB or more for eight hours regularly can cause premature aging of the ears and lead to hearing loss or tinnitus, explains the specialist. This loss of hearing health can take years to manifest. But for others, hearing loss may appear as early as their late twenties. “We see it for example with bar workers”, notes the DD Mijovic. And in the vast majority of cases, the losses are irreversible.
The specialist therefore calls for caution. She points out that on cell phones, in particular, a function exists to limit the sound of the device below the threshold of 85 dB. It encourages people to use it.
The five tips of the DD Mijovic to preserve his ears
- Keep the volume of your electronic devices to less than half of their maximum capacity so as not to exceed 85 decibels and not to drown out ambient noise.
- Use smartphone settings that can warn you if your sound exceeds standards for hearing health or allow you to impose a predetermined sound limit on your phone.
- Use smart phone applications that measure the amount of ambient decibels. Avoid being above 85 decibels for continuous periods.
- If the number of ambient decibels exceeds 85, use plugs to protect the ears.
- Consider headphones with ambient sound cancellation if ambient noise bothers you.
Learn more
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- 1.1 billion
- Number of adolescents and young adults around the world who are at risk of developing hearing loss due to “prolonged and excessive exposure to loud sounds”.
source: World Health Organization