Q: I love my iPod, but don't know if playing the music loudly can hurt my ears.
A: Huh? Come again. You say something? Of course, LOUD SOUNDS CAN HURT YOUR EARS. In fact, loudness is the most common culprit for causing deafness and typically is more prevalent in men because they have been traditionally exposed to more noise on the job. (This should dispel the myth that men are choosing SportsCenter over you; they just can't hear you.) Here's the scoop on iPods. Employers are not allowed by the government to expose your ears to more than 90 decibels of sound for more than an hour at a time. This is the noise level of a busy city street. If you turn your iPod up to 70 percent on the volume to jam to Ludacris, you're at this same loudness. Now, if you're trying to block out the sounds around on that same busy city street or crank the Usher during a workout, your ears are the ones taking a pounding. We've got nothing against listening to music, or those sexy headphones (which increase the sound another 10 decibels), or going bonkers downloading Sinatra's complete works, but we just want you to keep an eye on your dial—to keep your ears intact. |
