Humans love headphones. They can listen to their favorite music, hear podcasts, and have conversations from anywhere at any time. Headphones have become a big part of human lives. Everyone has headphones on, whether they’re at school, work, the gym, or anywhere. But, is it good for humans to always have headphones on? 

The inner part of our ear is extremely sensitive. Having headphones in all the time can’t be very good. In an article by Harvard, it talks about how humans have hair cells in their ears that transmit sound from our ears to our brains. Those cells can be permanently damaged from excess sound. Typically, whenever we wear headphones, it’s for the purpose of drowning out any noise possible. This means that, the majority of the time, we blast the sound into our ears. However, our headphones should be a max of 70 DB. Anything above can damage your ears, both for children and adults. Phones can go up to 105-110 DB, and having your volume that high can damage your ears in 5 minutes according to a Harvard study. 

Even knowing this, many people will wear headphones for hours upon hours, all with varying volumes. According to Dr. Foy, it depends on your volume. The louder the volume the shorter the duration, and that goes for the opposite. He gives out a rule saying, “ 60% volume for 60 minutes.” No one should have their volume maxed out for long periods of time. Unfortunately, there’s been too many people who have fallen victim to the pleasures of headphones.

In an article by Medical News Today, in 2021 1.7% of people worldwide experienced noise-induced hearing loss. 1.7% does not seem a lot, but 1.7% worldwide is around 110 million people. And with everyone obsessed with music and living in the moment, this number will only rise. Will you become a part of this statistic?