We’re constantly being told that listening to loud music is bad for our hearing and let’s be honest, very few of us ever actually listen and turn the music down. New findings by the World Health Organization say that 1.1 billion young people are permanently damaging their hearing by listening to “too much, too loudly” and suggest that we should only be listening to music for one hour a day in order to minimise damage.

This makes sense, however it does sound rather unrealistic. As I write this article, I have earphones in listening to music that is probably too loud and when I stop and think about it, I have probably been doing so for far longer than the recommended one hour. Am I going to go deaf?! Before going into melt down about resorting to hearing aids before I turn 30, it’s useful to note that also in the report from the WHO 40% of 12-35 year olds are exposed to what they describe as “damaging levels of sound from clubs and bars”.

Does that mean that we are all doomed to deafness? At the end of the day, there is a certain level of personal responsibility involved and most people are intelligent enough to realise that if they listen to too much music too loudly, then chances are they will experience hearing loss at some point in their lives. Considering that the average young adult is also likely to spend more than an hour at a time in a bar or club, some responsibility must also lie with owners and event organisers.

I’m perfectly aware that you can buy noise cancelling headphones that can be used to protect against the minefield that is going out but I challenge anyone to wear a set in a bar and see how many friends you make that evening. Apart from that, it defeats the object of going out to enjoy music.

The advice from the WHO is to try and have as many “listening breaks” as possible and to try and stay away from speakers at gigs. The advice is maybe a little inconvenient to follow through on but this is where personal responsibility comes in; you can either be slightly inconvenienced or deaf. I know which I would rather.
For those who are interested, the WHO’s safe listening times are:

85 dB - the level of noise inside a car - eight hours

90 dB - lawn mower - two hours 30 minutes

95 dB - an average motorcycle - 47 minutes

100 dB - car horn or underground train - 15 minutes

105 dB - mp3 player at maximum volume - four minutes

115 dB - loud rock concert - 28 seconds

120 dB - vuvuzela or sirens - nine seconds

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