Teenagers and young adults use headphones and earphones to relieve stress by listening to music, to not disturb others while gaining knowledge by watching videos, and to distract themselves from their noisy surroundings. However, they are neglecting, or are unaware of the hazards these devices can cause to their hearing if they are using these audio devices inappropriately and not responsibly. The following are the risks people face while using headphones and earphones.
- Hearing Loss: Your ears have a limit, they can only manage loud volume to a degree. Regularly hearing loud music increases your loud volume threshold, which can, in the long term, even cause you permanent hearing loss. The volume of your headsets should be low enough that if people are around you they can’t hear your music, otherwise, all of you will need to find a hearing aid.
- Ear Infections: If you are borrowing or lending headphone you are in danger of getting ear infections, bacteria tend to travel effortlessly to different ears through headphones and earphones. You should focus on keeping yourself hygienic by keeping your headphones to yourself.
- Ear Blockade: If you use earphones for long hours without breaks, air passing through ears is minimal, this can seriously infect your ears. The air passage towards your eardrum is blocked due to the high-quality headsets available in the market, these headphones are placed in your canal.
- Numb Ears: Hearing loud music regularly can permanently damage your hearing. Loud music causes numbness, which, as time moves on, can leave you deaf. This numbness will first be temporary, then it will become permanent if appropriate actions are not taken timely.
- Brain Damage: Use of headphones can even damage your brain if used for a prolonged period of time. Headphones and earphones that emits electromagnetic waves, such as Bluetooth earphones, can even cause you severe brain damage. These electromagnetic waves travel through the cochlea and hit our brains.
- Vertigo: Listening to high-volume music can cause vertigo. It gives you illusions and makes you feel that the environment around you is spinning and moving. You might feel like you are moving, which is called subjective vertigo. Or, you might feel your surroundings are moving, this is called objective vertigo.
- Accidents: Listening to music on headphones while walking outdoors can put others in danger too, you can cause accidents while ignoring your surrounding being too immersed in music. In recent time, negligent people have caused many accidents while walking on streets unconnected from the world.
In short, headphones are awesome and relaxing, but using it negligibly and casually can cause you and people around you dearly. Nothing in this world is worth your life. Temporary pleasure can never be as valuable as your health. These headphones and earphones have spoiled many lives, be thankful for what you have. Your life and health can never be replaced, please do not use headphones excessively, and avoid using them altogether.
A professional writer with over a decade of incessant writing skills. Her topics of interest and expertise range from health, nutrition and psychology.