Humans enjoy music as a social experience. Rhythm and melody are good for an individual’s body, mind, and social relationships.
Recently, however, the way humans listen to music has changed. With the introduction of personal listening devices and earbuds, modern music enthusiasts — including about 76 percent of college students — experience fewer of their tunes in social settings, listening through earbuds instead. Unfortunately, new research finds that frequent earbud users lose not only the social experience of music, but are likely to lose some of their hearing as well.
Spare your ears: unplug, and listen to music out loud.
The World Health Organization estimated that an individual can safely tolerate a maximum noise exposure of 85 decibels for about eight hours. The loudest volume for ordinary Apple earbuds reaches between 95 to 105 decibels, which will result in damage within 15 minutes. One study found that in the 15 years between 1990 and 2005, earbud use rose about 75 percent. During a similar period of time — 1994 to 2006 — hearing loss among teenages rose from 3.5 to 5.6 percent.
Earbuds are at fault even more than headphones because they can cause a more subtle type of ear damage. There are two ways to cause hearing loss: through damage to the hair cells in the ear that sense vibrations, and through damage to cochlear nerve fibres that transmit those vibrations to the brain. The second type of hearing loss is much more difficult to detect because it doesn’t change an individual’s ability to hear sounds in quiet environments, only in noisy ones. Researchers hypothesize that because earbuds do not block sound as well as over-the-ear headphones, users tend to listen at higher volumes, battering those hair cells with higher decibels. Earbuds in particular — more than headphones — also deliver stronger waves to the cochlear nerves, which can cause ear damage even at a lower volume.
So, earbud users should be careful about their listening habits. But, even those of us who use over-the-ear headphones have reasons to unplug.
At the Grammys last month, the sound-tech company Sonos launched an ad campaign based on a study — conducted with musician and neuroscientist Daniel Levitin — that investigated the effects of the “silent home” epidemic. The study found that 67 percent of people globally live in “silent homes,” or households without music. Levitin’s research has indicated that music is a social experience cross-culturally, and only recently has listening to music become an ex-societal experience. In one of his experiments, participants who underwent a 30-minute singing lesson with another individual produced significant increases in oxytocin, the social bonding hormone also released during sex and childbirth.
Music can stimulate incredible social bonding. Before there were personal listening devices, music was always heard out loud during social performances. So next time Hillsdale has an orchestra performance (hint: it’s at the end of finals week this semester), unplug the earbuds and experience some music out loud with your fellow students.