Do noise-cancelling headphones protect our hearing?
Other Side of the Story spoke to Claire Benton, president of the British Academy of Audiology, to find out more abut noise-cancelling headphones. Claire explained that they can help protect people’s hearing as focusing on one sound with all others cancelled out, means it doesn’t need to be listened to at a loud level.
“You still have to follow good listening hygiene,” Claire said. “Give your ears breaks from listening, keep the level down at a safe listening level regardless, because the temptation is still to turn it up. Some people really enjoy loud music and we do know that is really dangerous if you do it for too long. Eighty-five decibels(db) for eight hours is what the [official] regulations say is safe, without any hearing protection.”
Eighty-five db is the equivalent of the noise made by heavy traffic or a food blender. If you listened to something just three db louder, Claire said, the amount of time you could listen to it safely suddenly halves from eight hours to four.