What Part of the Ear do Headphones Effect?

Many of today’s popular devices use headphones. Music and media players, cellular phones, computers and televisions---they're all headphone-compatible. All of that sound going directly into your ears can damage your hearing. Noise-induced hearing loss is affecting adolescents at a higher rate than ever before. According to Hear-it.org, an increased use of personal stereos among school-age children is to blame.

Design

• Headphones have become sleeker, smaller and more comfortable. They also pose more of a risk to our ears than ever before.

  Ear buds are commonly used with personal media players. These tiny earphones are directly inserted into the ear canal, which automatically raises sound volume and pressure.

Effects

• Although most personal media players have a volume cap, it’s the duration of use that’s damaging people's hearing. Daily exposure to loud or direct sound entering your ears insidiously damages sensory hair cells in your inner ear.

Process

• The sound from headphones enters your ears, vibrates your eardrums, passes through the bones in your middle ear and stimulates tiny nerve cells in your cochlea (inner ear). An extremely loud sound---120 decibels or higher---could rupture your ear drum or shatter the delicate bones of your middle ear. However, personal media players usually don’t exceed 90 decibels.

Warning

• Headphones damage the tiny nerve cells in your cochlea. Although few people would listen to headphones at a painfully loud level, most people listen to music louder then what’s necessary. The direct sound overstimulates cochlear nerves, causing decay.

Expert Insight

• One of the first symptoms of inner ear nerve decay is tinnitus (ringing in the ear). Although it can take decades for the effects of inner ear decay to show up on a hearing test, noise-induced hearing damage can eventually lead to hearing loss and deafness.