Researchers in Netherlands have examined hearing test results from over 3,000 children between the ages of 9 and 11, while collecting information from their parents about how loudly and how often do their children listen to music via headphones on their portable devices.
More than 14% of the children that participated in this study were discovered to have at least some high frequency hearing loss. This type of hearing loss is traditionally caused by exposure to loud noise. Regardless of how long did the children wear headphone or what volume levels were they listening to the music at, children who listened to music on their portable players at least two days a week were twice as likely to have some level of hearing loss as children who did not listen to music on portable devices at all.
“Although we cannot conclude from this study that music players caused these hearing losses, it shows that music exposure might influence hearing at a young age,” said lead study author Dr. Carlijn le Clercq of Erasmus University Medical Center in Rotterdam. “This is important, because hearing loss is irreversible and thus has lifelong consequences,” le Clercq said to Albawaba.com.