Ten health hazards of using earphones everyday
Covid-19 pandemic has seen increased use of earplugs and headsets as workers operating from home attend online meetings and students attend online classes. This has become the order of the day. Medical experts warn that use of these devices for long hours may cause hearing impairment and many other health issues. Here are some side effects to watch out for.
Hearing problem
Earphones produce sound waves that reach our ears, making the eardrum vibrate.
This vibration spreads to the inner ear via the small bones and reaches the cochlea, which is a chamber in the inner ear, which is filled with a fluid and consists of thousands of small ’hairs’.
When this vibration reaches the cochlea, the fluid vibrates making the hairs also move.
The louder the sound, the stronger the vibrations and the more the hairs move.
The continuous and long-term exposure to loud music makes the hair cells to eventually lose their sensitivity to vibration.
Sometimes, the loud music also results in the cells bending or folding over, which leads to the sensation of temporary hearing loss.
The hair cells may or may not recover from these extreme vibrations. However, even when they recover, they mostly cannot function normally, which can cause permanent hearing loss which is almost impossible to recover from.
With World Health Organisation (WHO) warning that one in four of the world’s population will suffer from hearing problems by 2050, this calls for extra caution.
If using earphones for long hours, remove earphones from time- to-time. Fresh air should go inside the ears to keep them safe.
Children are the biggest victims
Ideally, school children should not be using headphones at all. If they are attending classes on laptop or personal computers, then the device volume is sufficient.
If school-going students are using headphones at the sound of more than 60 decibels, it will naturally put a strain on their hearing power.
In a recent study that was focused on children, headphone usage, and hearing loss, it took a look at over 3,000 children between ages nine and 11.
Of these participants, 40 per cent of them used portable music playing devices and weren’t as capable of hearing high-frequency sounds because of noise-induced hearing loss compared to those in their age group that didn’t use personal music devices.
You are more prone to accidents
Your ears are an important sense organ. They help you to have a better understanding of the outside environment.
If you are using the earphones, you are more prone to accidents as your hearing sense is not working.
Listeners can also be at risk of distraction while walking, with pedestrians getting injured or killed while wearing headphones.
To be safe and courteous, if you wear headphones when you are out riding, driving or walking, or running errands, consider pausing the music or turning it down.
Exchange of germs
Now that earphones are in demand, it’s not a wonder to find people sharing them.
Say, if you are late for an online meeting and you can’t find your earphones, it’s easy to grab the ones that are available, whether they belong to a spouse or a colleague.
But do you realise that exchanging earphones means you are also exchanging the germs and possible ear infection with the person?
Earplugs and headphones increase the temperature of the ear canal, which may induce skin abrasion and introduce harmful bacteria.
You could develop vertigo
Vertigo is “a sensation of feeling off balance,” and is often accompanied by symptoms such as dizziness, nausea, and vomiting.
Described as “… an illusion of movement that is not there,” vertigo is a condition of the inner ear, which may surface from infections or diseases of the ear. As excessive headphone usage is tied to vertigo-causing conditions.
Lack of focus
Constantly hearing noises on the earphones decrease your sense of focus. So, you find it hard to concentrate on your work at hand.
Excessive ear wax
Using earphones for a long time also develops excessive ear wax, which further accelerates the chances of tinnitus (ringing, buzzing, or roaring noise in the ear or the head), hearing difficulty, earache, and frequent ear infections.
Numbs the ear
Some new studies suggest that people who use earphones quiet often and are prone to loud music can leave their ear numb.
Although the numbness comes back to be normal, but this numbness on a long run can be dangerous and also cause deafness.
You are exposed to radiation
If you’re using a wireless (bluetooth) headset, you are exposing your body to radiation.
While research is inconclusive regarding these low-frequency radiations on bodily health, the idea that we’re possibly subjecting our body to harmful radiation is troubling.
In a 2018 study, WHO found that radiofrequency (RF) radiation produces biological effects that mirror carcinogens in male rats. These findings have led to subsequent studies on what effects, if any, RF radiation has on humans.
Negative effects on brain
Earphones these days produce some electromagnetic waves that can be dangerous for your brain.
Although, there are no medical evidences that have proved the theory, but daily users of bluetooth and earphones have been found to have some or other sort of brain related problems.
