A recent two-part study from Tel Aviv University on the music-listening habits of teenagers currently aged 13 to 17 predicts that one out of every four teens will suffer from early hearing loss in their adult lives. The increased prevalence is largely due to the misusage of portable listening devices (PLDs) such as iPods and other MP3 players at high volume and for extended periods of time. While the study did not appear to correlate the prevalence of early hearing loss with other risk factors such as genetic predisposition, lead author Chava Muchnik cautions that “in 10 or 20 years it will be too late to realize that an entire generation of young people is suffering from hearing problems much earlier than expected from natural aging.” The results are published in the International Journal of Audiology.

Hearing loss caused by continuous exposure to loud noise is a slow and progressive process. People may not notice the harm they are causing until years of accumulated damage begin to take hold, warns Prof. Muchnik. Those who are misusing MP3 players today might find that their hearing begins to deteriorate as early as their 30's and 40's — much earlier than past generations.

The first stage of the study included 289 participants aged 13 to 17. They were asked to answer questions about their habits on PLDs — specifically, their preferred listening levels and the duration of their listening. In the second stage, measurements of these listening levels were performed on 74 teens in both quiet and noisy environments. The measured volume levels were used to calculate the potential risk to hearing according to damage risk criteria laid out by industrial health and safety regulations.

The study's findings are worrisome, says Prof. Muchnik. Eighty percent of teens use their PLDs regularly, with 21 percent listening from one to four hours daily, and eight percent listening more than four hours consecutively. Taken together with the acoustic measurement results, the data indicate that a quarter of the participants are at severe risk for hearing loss.

Unfortunately, current health and safety regulations for measuring harm and hearing loss are limited to industrial occupations where there is continuous high volume noise. There are no universal benchmarks for music-induced hearing loss like that expected in the current generation of teens. However, European standards require manufacturers to limit the output of PLDs— some that can reach a maximum of 129 decibels (dB)—to 100 dB.

So what else can be done to prevent or reduce the risk of early hearing loss due to damaging noise?

Oregon’s Dangerous Decibels® educational program suggests three simple ways to protect your hearing from damaging noise:

(1) Walk away
(2) Turn it down
(3) Protect your ears

Read and learn more about about how to protect your hearing on the Dangerous Decibels® website here.

Sourced from the official press release by Tel Aviv University.
Chart in graphic adapted from Purdue University.