Earphones Vs Headphones – What Damages Your Ears More?

Most of us have a preference for either earphones or headphones, but these are based almost solely on sound quality and comfort. Most of don't even consider that the choice we make can have an impact on our health, as some of these devices can damage our hearing and even cause permanent hearing loss.

#1 Headphones Vs Earphones

Headphones and Earphones do not pose any health risk by themselves – the risk lies in the volume and amount of time you spend listening to music. Earphones are small and fit snugly in your ear, but they do not block out external sounds. Research shows that this means that you are more likely to turn up the volume on your player in an effort to block out other background sounds. If like most other Indians, you travel by train, buses, or rickshaws, you'll know what we're talking about!

While headphones are better than earphones, the best option is noise-cancelling headphones – these headphones help to reduce the sounds from your environment which means that you can enjoy your music at a lower volume without being disturbed by the sounds around.

As a general rule of thumb, if you are can hear the music from the headphones of a person standing next you, their volume is too loud. You can follow the 60/60 rule – listen to music for no more than 60 minutes a day, at 60 percent of the maximum volume. You can increase the amount of time you spend listening to music if you proportionately decrease the volume. Most people use music to block out environment sounds while travelling or exercising – instead of listening to music throughout your commute, you can use foam earplugs for part of the journey and then switch to your music player.

#2 How Loud Is Too Loud?

While soft music will not harm your hearing, scientists have found that any sound that is 85 decibels (dB) or higher can cause permanent damage to your hearing. The louder the sound, the quicker the damage to your hearing – the sound of an idling bulldozer is approximately 85 dB and it would take approximately 8 hours of listening to this sound for permanent damage to occur. On the other hand, an mp3 player with stock earphones – cranked up to max volume can reach 100 dB which is loud enough to start causing permanent hearing damage after just 15 minutes!

#3 Do Headphones Cause Ear Infections?

As headphones cover your entire ear, they can trap the heat within your ears, which is why some people have theorized that the higher temperature could increase the risk of ear infections, as it would provide naturally-occurring bacteria within the ear perfect conditions to multiply and thrive. While this does seem like a possibility, studies have shown that even the prolonged use of headphones (such as in the case of telephone customer service representatives) does not increase the risk of ear canal infections.

#4 Do Earphones Cause Ear Infections?

As earphones need to be pushed securely into your ears, many believe that it can cause earwax to get pushed further into the ear where it can get impacted and can cause an internal ear infection. There is no scientific evidence to back up these claims, but it would be wise to keep your ears clean to ensure that you never have to face this problem.

#5 What To Listen?

There are some types of music such as instrumental music that are perfect for lower volumes while some music genres such as heavy metal need to be comparatively louder. If you must listen to loud music, restrict yourself to just a couple of songs before moving on to something softer.