The danger of earbuds

We all know that earbuds are easy to carry and sound good and they’re useful devices as long as they are used at low volume. However they’re basically small speakers you wear inside your ears. And loud music close to your eardrum can cause damage to your hearing.

How Earbuds Damage the Ears

Believe it or not, earbuds can damage your hearing in the same way that things like chainsaws and motorcycles can. Chainsaws and motorcycle engines create about 100 decibels of sound. That much sound can start to damage a person's ears after less than half an hour. An MP3 player at 70% of its top volume is about 85 decibels. Turning the volume up and listening for long periods of time can put you in real danger of permanent hearing loss.

What to Do

Noise-induced hearing loss from using earbuds usually takes a while. Because it happens gradually, a lot of people don't know they have a problem until it's too late. Signs you may have hearing loss are; a ringing, buzzing, or roaring in your ears after hearing a loud noise or distortion of sounds.

What should you do if you think you have signs of hearing loss? Call your doctor.

Are There Other Options?

It might feel like every phone or music player comes packaged with a tiny pair of earbuds. After all, they're cheap to manufacture and easy to use. So what can you do? Go retro with headphones. There's a reason they're making a comeback. Sometimes old-school is better. Most electronics stores have entire sections devoted to headphones. The best headphones, noise-canceling headphones, help block out other noises. That way, you don't have to turn up the volume on your music as loud to hear it well. Noise-canceling headphones may be good for staying focused on studying or homework, but they're not great choices if you need to hear the world around you.