“when the iphone and android devices came out, it just seemed like everyone’s got earbuds in their ears,” he says. “and so we did a few studies.”
one examined location factors that might influence volume, so participants listened to music in quiet, in the din of a cafeteria or with street traffic noise. they were asked to set the volume level to where it sounded best, and found that the context of where you’re listening does influence whether or not you use them at a safe level.
“imagine the individuals at a gym where there’s a lot of banging and music playing and a lot of people talking,” hodgetts says. “so you keep turning your phones up. but if you put them back on when you get home at that level, you blow your head off.”
with earbuds, there’s also the safety risk of disrupting your ability to locate where sounds are coming from, so you might not hear a car if you’re biking or running, for example.
what is considered a safe volume? hodgetts says there’s not a prescriptive number, but advises that you should be able to be listening comfortably while others can’t hear what you’re listening to.
as with many other tech devices, less is considered more in terms of your health.
“if you’re listening to your ipod or your phone at 90 decibels, you’ll be only safely listening to that for maybe 15 to 30 minutes. and if you’re listening to it for hours, then you could be exceeding your maximum allowable daily noise dose,” he says.
canada’s federal occupational health and safety regulations say noise exposure level should not exceed 87 decibels for eight hours in any 24-hour period. interesting, too, he says it takes about 15 or 16 hours for your ears to typically recover from a one-off noise overdose, but if you’re listening every day at extreme volume, then your ear never really recovers and damage becomes permanent over time.
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