Author: reporter Zhang Yun
"Guangming Daily" (07 edition on January 8, 2022)
"I love listening to podcasts on my commute, but the subway is so noisy that I have to turn up the volume to hear it clearly."
"If I can't sleep at night, I listen to serialized novels. I often forget to close it when I fall asleep."
"I often watch some video materials during self-study in the library. In order not to disturb others, I have to wear headphones."
"The kids upstairs are so noisy, I can only wear headphones when I work from home."
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Nowadays, the "headphone family" can be seen in many life scenes.
While earphones bring great convenience and fun to our lives, news of hearing damage and even deafness appear from time to time due to unreasonable wearing and use. Therefore, it is important to always remind people to protect their ears and hearing.
According to data released by the World Health Organization, nearly 2.5 billion people worldwide are expected to have some degree of hearing problem by 2050.
Without action, at least 700 million of them will need to seek ear and hearing care and other rehabilitation services.
How to hold up an "umbrella" for the ears while enjoying headphones has become a puzzle for many people, especially young people.
How does long-term wearing of headphones affect hearing?
What are the "SOS signals" sent out when the ear is damaged, and how to prevent and treat it?
1 Noise-induced deafness is "concealed" and difficult to detect
For many people, headphones have become one of the necessities of life.
When commuting, studying, working, or even sleeping, as long as you wear headphones, you can swim in the ocean of sound anytime, anywhere, and get massive information and listening enjoyment.
An online survey called "How long do you wear headphones a day" shows that only 20% of people "don't love headphones", while "frequently (more than 2 hours)" and "need to wear (within 2 hours)" )” accounted for 40% and 35% respectively.
Some netizens said frankly that "when you wear headphones, no one loves them". If you forget to wear headphones and go out, you will feel like you are "running naked".
In many cases, the use of headphones does bring a lot of convenience to our lives, but bad habits such as long-term, high decibel, and sleeping wearing are "silently" stealing ear health.
Recently, topics such as "14-year-old girl wears headphones for a long time cause noise-induced deafness" and "doctors recommend using headphones to listen to songs for no more than 60 minutes" have been in the forefront of hot searches one after another. It is not difficult to see from hundreds of millions of readings and tens of thousands of discussions. How to protect hearing has become a common concern of earphone users.
In the comments, many people only know that wearing headphones is bad for the ears, but they don't know much about the specific hazards.
During the interviews, doctors generally agreed that exposure to ambient noise, excessive volume of personal audio equipment, etc., were the "culprits" of hearing loss.
Experts said that the degree of noise damage to hearing is related to the intensity and duration of the noise. The greater the exposure to noise, the more serious the impact on hearing.
According to Zhang Yi, a doctor from Beijing Tongren Hospital Affiliated to Capital Medical University and Beijing Otolaryngology Institute, wearing earphones will not only bring discomfort such as ear stuffiness and ear blockage to users with sensitive ear canal skin, but also induce eczema or eczema. In addition to inflammation, the main and most important is the inner ear part that affects the ear.
"Prolonged, close-range, high-decibel sound may cause damage or apoptosis of inner ear hair cells, the main manifestation of which is hearing loss, and can cause noise-induced deafness or hidden hearing loss over time."
Statistics show that 17% of teenagers in South Korea suffer from "noise-induced deafness".
"If you listen to music at a volume of more than 80 decibels every day for up to 1 hour, you may lose your hearing permanently for 5 years." Jiang Zidong, chief physician of the Department of Otolaryngology of Peking Union Medical College Hospital, explained that if it is found in a noisy environment, turn up the volume to 60 If you can't hear clearly % of the time, it's time to take off the earphones, and listening again will only damage your ears.
"It needs to be emphasized that you should never sleep with headphones on. During sleep, it is difficult to control your posture, which may cause physical damage to the fragile ears while causing noise damage." Jiang Zidong said.
In Zhang Yi's view, compared with hearing loss caused by other reasons, the damage caused by wearing headphones for a long time is often very "concealed" and difficult to detect.
This type of damage is a sensorineural hearing loss, the result of which is often irreversible.
But is there really no trace of this type of hearing loss?
Zhang Yi reminded us to always pay attention to the distress signals our body sends to us.
"When you feel that some sounds are inaudible, or you experience tinnitus, or you find that the original volume is not enough and you need a higher volume to hear clearly, you need to be alert to whether hearing loss has occurred. In addition, there is a manifestation of hearing loss. In order to hear speech sounds that are difficult to understand in a noisy environment, it is necessary to go to the hospital for examination in time."
2 It is not advisable to "make noise with noise", and noise-cancelling headphones are favored
In order to resist the impact of noise on the ears, noise-cancelling headphones are becoming more and more popular.
Major manufacturers and brands have launched noise-cancelling headphones, and products of various types, functions and price points emerge in an endless stream.
Ms. Su from Beijing has been using noise-cancelling headphones for more than two years. At first, she took a wait-and-see attitude towards noise-cancelling headphones, but after experiencing the noise-cancelling effect in a physical store, she reluctantly "eliminated the old headphones and embraced them." New Headphones".
"In the past, I would always turn up the volume unconsciously to 'make noise', which would increase the load on both ears. The noise reduction effect of noise-cancelling headphones is really obvious, even if not 100% noise cancellation, at least in the subway Listening to songs and watching videos." Ms. Su said.
The reporter searched for "noise-canceling headphones" on the shopping website, and it showed that there are more than 100,000 products to choose from.
According to the way of wearing, it is divided into head-mounted, bone conduction, neck-mounted, wired in-ear, etc. The price also ranges from a dozen to a few hundred to a few thousand.
It is not difficult to find that today's consumers are more inclined to choose "active noise-cancelling headphones" compared with traditional passive noise-cancelling headphones that physically isolate noise.
According to reports, the principle of active noise-cancelling headphones is to first collect and analyze the noise in the environment, and "neutralize" or even cancel the ambient noise by actively generating reverse noise, so that the sound played in the headphones becomes clearer.
But just in July this year, the State Administration for Market Regulation conducted risk monitoring specifically for "active noise-cancelling headphones", involving a total of 60 pairs of headphones from 47 companies.
According to the monitoring results, the State Administration for Market Regulation believes that 50% of the noise-cancelling headphones in the risk monitoring have insufficient noise reduction, which may cause consumers to turn up the volume in a noisy environment, and the sound pressure level of the noise is too high, which may cause certain hearing damage. risk.
Regarding whether noise-cancelling headphones can protect hearing, Ms. Su said that her noise-cancelling headphones will monitor the volume data in real time when they are worn, and will give early warnings when necessary.
She showed recent health data to reporters: in the past 7 days, the ambient volume level was normal, and the headphone volume was also normal; the average volume of headphones last week was 46 decibels, which was lower than the previous week's 53 decibels.
In addition, if the recommended volume limit of 7 days is exceeded, the headset will send a notification and reduce the volume, and you can also turn on the "reduce high volume" function.
Despite this, she also said that she sometimes felt "stuffy in the ears" during use, and even dizziness and nausea in severe cases, and she had to take off the headphones as soon as possible to relieve it.
Are Active Noise Cancelling Headphones Safe for Headphone Users?
Yan Zhanfeng, director of the Department of Otolaryngology and Director of the Teaching and Research Office of Dongzhimen Hospital of Beijing University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, said bluntly that "good quality earphones" should be selected, because good quality earphones have a stronger ability to restore sound and emit less noise.
Zhang Yi believes that hearing damage is not entirely dependent on whether the earphones can reduce noise, but is still determined by the intensity and time of the sound exposure. The principle of hearing protection is to reduce the chance of using earphones in a noisy environment.
"In the case where headphones must be used, noise-cancelling headphones are a relatively good choice, which can reduce background noise to a certain extent, allowing users to hear the sound coming out of the headphones at a relatively low volume." She said, "In a quiet environment, the type of headphones is not very important, and it is more recommended not to use headphones."
Jiang Zidong also expressed a similar view. Usually, you should wear headphones as little as possible, especially earbuds. If you must wear them, you can choose headphones and noise-cancelling headphones.
3 To reduce hearing loss, attention should be paid to prevention and timely medical treatment
According to the World Health Organization, there are currently about 1.5 billion people in the world with varying degrees of hearing loss, of which about 430 million have moderate or higher hearing loss.
In addition, due to noise exposure, about 50% of people between the ages of 12 and 35 will be at risk of hearing loss, or even induced "sudden deafness".
"We all say that the eyes are the windows to the soul, because once a person falls from light into darkness, his heart is very hopeless; similarly, for a normal person, when the sound world enters the silent world, the quality of life is bound to be affected." Jiang Zidong said that hearing loss most affects the ability to communicate with others. "Deaf children whose hearing loss cannot be dealt with will experience delayed language development, and the elderly will lead to loneliness, isolation and depression."
In addition, the World Health Organization estimates that untreated hearing loss costs the world an additional $750 billion annually, including health sector costs (excluding hearing equipment), educational support costs, productivity losses and social costs.
How to wear headphones reasonably, many experts said that the "60-60-60 principle" has been widely recognized internationally, that is, the volume should not exceed 60% of the maximum volume, the continuous time should not exceed 60 minutes, and the outside sound should preferably not exceed 60 decibels.
In addition, paying attention to ear hygiene and maintaining good ear habits are also important ways to prevent problems before they occur.
On how to prevent, Zhang Yi said: "In the process of using earphones, attention should be paid to regular cleaning and disinfection of earphones to prevent ear canal infections caused by earphone pollution; minimize the use of earphones in noisy environments and limit the use of earphones. Wait for the time of the audio equipment and control the volume. In a quiet environment, try not to use headphones; avoid noise in work and life, causing unnecessary impact on others; at the same time, headphone users should pay attention to discover abnormalities in time and monitor hearing regularly Wait."
Jiang Zidong explained that the human body has a self-healing function, just like an ulcer in the mouth, if a small damage occurs, the ear can repair itself.
However, when the ear sends out a distress signal such as tinnitus and deafness, be sure to seek medical treatment and treatment in time.
If the optimal treatment window is missed or if treatment is ineffective, hearing loss can be lifelong.
Jiang Zidong reminded that during the treatment process, we must let go of anxiety and maintain a positive and optimistic attitude, so that the treatment and drugs can play their due role.
A healthy lifestyle is once again on the agenda.
"In addition to the excessive volume of personal audio equipment, there are many factors that cause hearing damage, such as staying up late, smoking, alcoholism, stress, lack of sleep, negative emotions, cardiovascular disease, etc." Jiang Zidong said that maintaining good living habits and An optimistic state of mind, a regular schedule, and a healthy diet all go a long way toward preventing hearing damage.
March 3 is National Ear Day every year, and the fourth Sunday in September is International Day of the Deaf. However, people's awareness and attention to the ear is far from enough, which undoubtedly raises higher expectations for professionals. Require.
"If we want everyone to enjoy hearing health, we need to constantly open up channels, popularize professional knowledge, and let more people understand the importance of ears to human health." Zhang Yi appealed.
(Reporter Zhang Yun)