If you think that cranking your music won’t cause hearing problems until years down the road, you might want to keep reading.
Turns out, listening to MP3 players can cause immediate temporary changes in your hearing sensitivity, according to a new study in the Archives of Otolaryngology—Head & Neck Surgery.
Occupational noise exposure has been linked with hearing loss, so the impact of recreational noises (like noisy sports or activities) might now be a cause for concern, say the study authors. That’s because too much noise can lead to changes in a structure in your inner ear—the organ of Corti—that contains auditory sensory cells or ‘hair cells.’
To test the short-term effects of how an MP3 player affects your hearing, the researchers asked a group of people to listen to pop-rock music on an iPod nano for 1 hour. Then the scientists tested the subjects’ hearing against that of a group that didn’t listen to any music.
The results: Those who had listened to the MP3 player were more likely to test higher for levels of deterioration in the outer hair cells in their ear.
“The primary damage is concentrated on the outer hair cells, which are more vulnerable to acoustic overstimulation than inner hair cells,” note the study authors.
But these changes returned to normal by the time the next session took place, which leads the study authors to assume that the changes were only short-term. Still, they say that more research is needed to find out if the effects are cumulative.
“Considering the reduction in hearing sensitivity after listening to a [personal music player], these devices are potentially harmful,” write the study authors.
