6 ms·

Gamers at risk of irreversible hearing loss and tinnitus, study suggests

49 points by elorant 3y ago

footlose_3815 3y ago
The new review suggests that gamers play for long periods of time *with the volume turned up, beyond safe limits.* I love when the title omits the point in leiu of clickbait. Loud sounds cause hearing problems? I’m shocked!
- kaczordon 3y ago
  Right but they mention the decibel levels in the article. I’ve never actually measured the levels that come through my headphones so it’s possible I’ve set them too loud.
mopenstein 3y ago
I don't know how valid this study is but you do not want tinnitus. I have it pretty bad and it's getting worse as I age. I wouldn't say it's ruined my life but it has severely decreased my quality of life and severely increased my anxiety and depression that lead to multiple anxiety attacks and 1 trip to the emergency room. I didn't even get mine from loud noises, I was only 11 at the time, I'm just here to encourage everyone to not take silence for granted.
- vdaea 3y ago
  I agree that you do not want tinnitus, but you also do not want worsening eyesight and hearing, less nimbleness, etc and you get all of that as you age anyway.
  - resolutebat 3y ago
    The difference is that tinnitus is easily preventable.
    - bsder 3y ago
      > The difference is that tinnitus is easily preventable. That is categorically NOT true. I'm not a rocker. I've have earplugs on my keychain. I have over the ear hearing protection for the shop. I have no detectable hearing loss relative to my age. I still have tinnitus. Nobody knows where or why I got it. And there is no treatment. Apparently, compression on the audio nerves can also cause it. There is a doctor in Massachusetts doing research on this right now.
      - Fire-Dragon-DoL 3y ago
        Makes sense. For mine they suggested one blood vessel makes a weird turn near my ear nerves and it might be the cause. The fact that it increases with stress (higher blood pressure) makes me think it's true. Who knows.
  - KolenCh 3y ago
    I agree things in your list are also important, but I’d say for anyone having tinnitus would agree that nothing in that list compares to the constant torture of what tinnitus is. On one hand, it is not that bad, one is not disabled by having it. On the other hand, it is always there, there’s nothing you can do to make that easier, not even for a moment. It’s not about ability, but what it does to you mentally.
nottorp 3y ago
BBC pulls in some clickbait study and keeps the clickbait title. If you turn the volume up too loud, you'll get hearing loss long term. But not because you're a "gamer".
- cinntaile 3y ago
  Some games provide important sound cues, if you turn your volume up you get an advantage over players that don't turn their volume up. This is very different from listening to music or podcasts.
  - rightbyte 3y ago
    You don't want the "jump scares" though.
  - 01100011 3y ago
    Are there no headphones with AGC or a limiter? Seems like a good product to have.
    - pletnes 3y ago
      My kids have. They look like kiddo stuff and thus no Fortnite enthusiast will wear them dead.
    - solardev 3y ago
      Some games and systems have a "night mode". It's more a question of decreasing the dynamic range, not just adjusting gain up or down. A footstep is much quieter than a gunshot, for example, so you'd want to compress the range so you can hear both without going deaf.
  - nottorp 3y ago
    The BBC and you are unaware that a great majority of computer games are not competitive multiplayer?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
instagib 3y ago
No cure for tinnitus, not mentioned in article. Only current options are: masking, which can make it worse if noise is played too loud to mask the tinnitus for too long. Cognitive behavioral therapy, which is about adjusting your feelings toward tinnitus. Hearing aids, which can have masking sounds built in, seem to help by amplifying other sounds going into the ears. Some people develop hyperacusis also from masking with sounds too loud when masking sounds should be as low as possible to provide relief then be reduced further. Hyperacusis makes it difficult to live with everyday sounds.
- psynister 3y ago
  There is also evidence that cochlear implants reduce tinnitus. IIRC it's around 75% of people suffering from tinnitus who get cochlear implants report improvement ranging from reduced severity to complete relief. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2740131/#bib-009 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2740131/#bib-00...
- stevebmark 3y ago
  The title of the article literally says "irreversible"
Ekaros 3y ago
Doesn't this apply to all audio? So people listening or watching BBC with sound set too high risk irreversible hearing loss?
- diggan 3y ago
  As long as it has a lot of short and loud sounds, and is played via the headphones, then yes. I don't think that's the common scenario for watching BBC though. From the paper itself: > Headphones are frequently used, and individuals may increase the volume to higher levels than their preferred listening levels to overcome the background noise that is common in these settings. While gaming centres and PC rooms exist worldwide, the vast majority are in China and other Asian countries. Third, electronic sports, termed esports, involve competitive, organised gaming and are rapidly growing in popularity. Some esports players are professional gamers, and therefore may practice for many hours a day, often using headphones, and compete regularly in online or in-person competitions or tournaments. https://bmjpublichealth.bmj.com/content/2/1/e000253 https://bmjpublichealth.bmj.com/content/2/1/e000253
avalys 3y ago
In other news, if you attend Zoom meetings with your headphones set too loud, you will probably also get hearing loss and tinnitus. BREAKING NEWS ALERT: REMOTE WORKERS AT RISK OF IRREVERSIBLE HEARING LOSS AND TINNITUS
- Oarch 3y ago
  WHAT?
alright2565 3y ago
My favorite quote from the linked article, Table 1 Row 1: > Gaming was associated with poorer self-reported hearing. Use of hearing protection is uncommon (<5%) among gamers. The study quoted by the featured study is very reasonable in finding this given its context, but I think it's a little ridiculous the featured study suggested that gamers might use hearing protection as opposed to turning the sound down. In any case, this is interesting to see. I never turn my volume up past about 20% because it becomes physically painful at that point, but I thought maybe some people might have insensitive hardware that needs higher power to create reasonable audio? Are folks just leaving their volume on the default 50% or 100% or whatever it is?
- snazz 3y ago
  > but I thought maybe some people might have insensitive hardware that needs higher power to create reasonable audio? Are folks just leaving their volume on the default 50% or 100% or whatever it is? A few reasons I can think of: * Less sensitive headphones (as you mentioned). A lot of fancier headphones have much higher impedance and need more power to drive. * People playing competitive games want to be able to hear quiet and farther away sounds like footsteps approaching. Then sounds like gunshots are dangerously loud. * Earbuds that seal poorly (think the original AirPods as opposed to the Pro version) make you turn up the volume in order to hear any bass (or shove them deeper into your ear canal if you want to listen at a more reasonable volume, which is also uncomfortable).
rapfaria 3y ago
What do folks do to prevent these? Set a hard-limit, say 20% of maximum volume? Are there software that help on this?
- thomastjeffery 3y ago
  The ideal method would be a compressor. You want quiet sounds relatively louder, and loud sounds relatively more quiet. As far as software goes, that's where it gets tricky.
  - pletnes 3y ago
    These exist for the military and hunters. The ones I saw long ago were probably hard/firmware based. SW must be possible but you’ll get artifacts.
- itishappy 3y ago
  Set a reasonable limit, which will vary wildly based on the hardware and software involved. I'm sure there's companies out there selling high-tech solutions, but you already come equipped with a pair of incredibly sensitive instruments attached to your head. A comfortable listening volume is a comfortable speaking volume, so pop an earbud out and talk to yourself! If you feel you'd need to raise your voice to be heard over your game/music, it's too loud for extended listening.
- diggan 3y ago
  Take breaks, and if it hurts at any point, take a long break. Video games have lots of small, quick and sharp sounds (gunshots and such), and in a competitive environment, you probably want to have the volume high enough to hear footsteps from far away, but that'll also make all the "bad" sounds very loud.
  - LinuxBender 3y ago
    That brings to mind automatic gain control. It seems like there could be a market for headphones that have their own AGC to prevent a computer or music player from overriding such things. Perhaps a button to switch to AGC Normal, AGC Safe, AGC disabled? Maybe even default to AGC Safe, so one could crank up a game to where they can easily hear footsteps but then a 50 BMG next to the head would be the same volume. AGC Disabled to bring back the dynamic range of music that has a known loudness. Or perhaps it's a silly idea. [Edit] Per liminalsunset I should be referring to this as Dynamic Range Compression or DRC
chalion 3y ago
I have a mild case of tinnitus - most of the time I'm blissfully unaware of it unless it's very quiet. 20 years ago I used to play video games (PC) for long periods with headphones. I never liked loud music so I don't think I set the volume too high, but maybe with headphones the damage can accumulate over time even within the safe limits.
windowsrookie 3y ago
Some form of this has been a problem since the invention of headphones. Kids were blasting music on their walkman, then cd-player, iPod, portable DVD player, gameboy, etc. The bigger issue I think is bluetooth headphones have made it easier to be exposing your ears to noise at all times. And I tend to see way more of the under ~25 generation wearing AirPods at seemingly all times now. It was considered rude/inappropriate to wear headphones while working less than 10 years ago. But now I often see retail workers, delivery drivers, etc. wearing AirPods while working. I would think exposing your ears to noise all day long, even at low volumes can't be healthy. Just like when exercising, you need to give your muscles a break.
- unsupp0rted 3y ago
  For a couple months I lived in an apartment right next to the crashing waves of the ocean- it was loud. Imagine our ancestors camping there for months or years, 24/7, without windows to close. Would they all have suffered from tinnitus and hearing loss? You’d think our ears would have evolved to be more resilient than that.
  - throwaway3563 3y ago
    It’s possible our ears never evolved to handle that. Instead we evolved to move around, build shelters, protect our ears etc. and generally take defensive measures against excessively loud environments.
FigurativeVoid 3y ago
I am glad that there are people doing research on this. For a long time, I have suspected that people of my generation and younger (i.e. people under 40), are going to have a lot of hearing problems. As a musician, I have always been a bit paranoid about my hearing, so I use ear plugs when exposed to loud noises. But the amount of people I know that are already having hearing issues is shocking. Looking back, I can only assume it is because they always had headphones on, and the were always far too loud. It was worse once we started driving. People would blast music as loud as the speakers would allow.
TaylorSwift 3y ago
does anyone know if it still damages the ear at below decibles, let say 80dbs, for long periods of time (10+ hours a day for 3-5 days straight)
Proven 3y ago
[dead]
SirMaster 3y ago
How is gaming any different than anything, like watching movies? It has nothing to do with gaming and everything to do with volume levels... I game all the time and I have my volume levels really low. Like way lower than I listen to music at for example.
thomastjeffery 3y ago
PUBG is infamous for this problem. Much of the game is predicated on hearing quiet sounds like footsteps, while there are often loud sounds like gunshots, or even louder sounds like the C4 explosion. Because of the assumptions based around what constitutes "cheating", players are not only strongly disincentivized from compressing and equalizing the game's audio: they are often outright banned for doing so. If you play PUBG competitively, then you are either damaging your hearing, or you are "cheating". This is one of many reasons that anti-cheat systems do more harm than good. Once upon a time, anti-cheat simply meant choosing which players you are willing to play with. That system had no trouble accommodating accessibility. Today, that's practically impossible, because servers are hosted and moderated exclusively by the game studios themselves.
- jonatron 3y ago
  The idea of amplifying the footsteps wav file is from early counter strike
- kazinator 3y ago
  Compression can be had entirely in analog, and it the compressing amplifier could be built discreetly into a headset.
  - thomastjeffery 3y ago
    Yes, but that's too much of an expense to expect from the average gamer. Compression (and other signal processing like EQ) really ought to be a feature in the OS by now.
    - kazinator 3y ago
      But my understanding from this thread is that you get busted for cheating if features in the OS are detected.
- tester756 3y ago
  >This is one of many reasons that anti-cheat systems do more harm than good. Once upon a time, anti-cheat simply meant choosing which players you are willing to play with. That system had no trouble accommodating accessibility. Today, that's practically impossible, because servers are hosted and moderated exclusively by the game studios themselves. uh what? or maybe game devs could realize that this is an issue and provide some better configurability for such stuff?
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Fire-Dragon-DoL 3y ago
I'm a gamer and have tinnitus. Not sure what caused it though (I don't play first person shooters), but I do wear a headset all day, for ages (gaming, then work).
j7ake 3y ago
What about the open-office workers that can only work by putting on noise-cancelling headphones and pumping noise in their ears? Is taht not equivalent to gaming 8 hours a day?

49 points by elorant 3y ago

The new review suggests that gamers play for long periods of time *with the volume turned up, beyond safe limits.* I love when the title omits the point in leiu of clickbait. Loud sounds cause hearing problems? I’m shocked!

kaczordon 3y ago
Right but they mention the decibel levels in the article. I’ve never actually measured the levels that come through my headphones so it’s possible I’ve set them too loud.

mopenstein 3y ago

I don't know how valid this study is but you do not want tinnitus. I have it pretty bad and it's getting worse as I age. I wouldn't say it's ruined my life but it has severely decreased my quality of life and severely increased my anxiety and depression that lead to multiple anxiety attacks and 1 trip to the emergency room. I didn't even get mine from loud noises, I was only 11 at the time, I'm just here to encourage everyone to not take silence for granted.

vdaea 3y ago
I agree that you do not want tinnitus, but you also do not want worsening eyesight and hearing, less nimbleness, etc and you get all of that as you age anyway.
- resolutebat 3y ago
  The difference is that tinnitus is easily preventable.
  - bsder 3y ago
    > The difference is that tinnitus is easily preventable. That is categorically NOT true. I'm not a rocker. I've have earplugs on my keychain. I have over the ear hearing protection for the shop. I have no detectable hearing loss relative to my age. I still have tinnitus. Nobody knows where or why I got it. And there is no treatment. Apparently, compression on the audio nerves can also cause it. There is a doctor in Massachusetts doing research on this right now.
    - Fire-Dragon-DoL 3y ago
      Makes sense. For mine they suggested one blood vessel makes a weird turn near my ear nerves and it might be the cause. The fact that it increases with stress (higher blood pressure) makes me think it's true. Who knows.
- KolenCh 3y ago
  I agree things in your list are also important, but I’d say for anyone having tinnitus would agree that nothing in that list compares to the constant torture of what tinnitus is. On one hand, it is not that bad, one is not disabled by having it. On the other hand, it is always there, there’s nothing you can do to make that easier, not even for a moment. It’s not about ability, but what it does to you mentally.

nottorp 3y ago

BBC pulls in some clickbait study and keeps the clickbait title. If you turn the volume up too loud, you'll get hearing loss long term. But not because you're a "gamer".

cinntaile 3y ago
Some games provide important sound cues, if you turn your volume up you get an advantage over players that don't turn their volume up. This is very different from listening to music or podcasts.
- rightbyte 3y ago
  You don't want the "jump scares" though.
- 01100011 3y ago
  Are there no headphones with AGC or a limiter? Seems like a good product to have.
  - pletnes 3y ago
    My kids have. They look like kiddo stuff and thus no Fortnite enthusiast will wear them dead.
  - solardev 3y ago
    Some games and systems have a "night mode". It's more a question of decreasing the dynamic range, not just adjusting gain up or down. A footstep is much quieter than a gunshot, for example, so you'd want to compress the range so you can hear both without going deaf.
- nottorp 3y ago
  The BBC and you are unaware that a great majority of computer games are not competitive multiplayer?
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

instagib 3y ago

No cure for tinnitus, not mentioned in article. Only current options are: masking, which can make it worse if noise is played too loud to mask the tinnitus for too long. Cognitive behavioral therapy, which is about adjusting your feelings toward tinnitus. Hearing aids, which can have masking sounds built in, seem to help by amplifying other sounds going into the ears. Some people develop hyperacusis also from masking with sounds too loud when masking sounds should be as low as possible to provide relief then be reduced further. Hyperacusis makes it difficult to live with everyday sounds.

psynister 3y ago
There is also evidence that cochlear implants reduce tinnitus. IIRC it's around 75% of people suffering from tinnitus who get cochlear implants report improvement ranging from reduced severity to complete relief. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2740131/#bib-009 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2740131/#bib-00...
stevebmark 3y ago
The title of the article literally says "irreversible"

Ekaros 3y ago

Doesn't this apply to all audio? So people listening or watching BBC with sound set too high risk irreversible hearing loss?

diggan 3y ago
As long as it has a lot of short and loud sounds, and is played via the headphones, then yes. I don't think that's the common scenario for watching BBC though. From the paper itself: > Headphones are frequently used, and individuals may increase the volume to higher levels than their preferred listening levels to overcome the background noise that is common in these settings. While gaming centres and PC rooms exist worldwide, the vast majority are in China and other Asian countries. Third, electronic sports, termed esports, involve competitive, organised gaming and are rapidly growing in popularity. Some esports players are professional gamers, and therefore may practice for many hours a day, often using headphones, and compete regularly in online or in-person competitions or tournaments. https://bmjpublichealth.bmj.com/content/2/1/e000253 https://bmjpublichealth.bmj.com/content/2/1/e000253

avalys 3y ago

In other news, if you attend Zoom meetings with your headphones set too loud, you will probably also get hearing loss and tinnitus. BREAKING NEWS ALERT: REMOTE WORKERS AT RISK OF IRREVERSIBLE HEARING LOSS AND TINNITUS

Oarch 3y ago
WHAT?

alright2565 3y ago

My favorite quote from the linked article, Table 1 Row 1: > Gaming was associated with poorer self-reported hearing. Use of hearing protection is uncommon (<5%) among gamers. The study quoted by the featured study is very reasonable in finding this given its context, but I think it's a little ridiculous the featured study suggested that gamers might use hearing protection as opposed to turning the sound down. In any case, this is interesting to see. I never turn my volume up past about 20% because it becomes physically painful at that point, but I thought maybe some people might have insensitive hardware that needs higher power to create reasonable audio? Are folks just leaving their volume on the default 50% or 100% or whatever it is?

snazz 3y ago
> but I thought maybe some people might have insensitive hardware that needs higher power to create reasonable audio? Are folks just leaving their volume on the default 50% or 100% or whatever it is? A few reasons I can think of: * Less sensitive headphones (as you mentioned). A lot of fancier headphones have much higher impedance and need more power to drive. * People playing competitive games want to be able to hear quiet and farther away sounds like footsteps approaching. Then sounds like gunshots are dangerously loud. * Earbuds that seal poorly (think the original AirPods as opposed to the Pro version) make you turn up the volume in order to hear any bass (or shove them deeper into your ear canal if you want to listen at a more reasonable volume, which is also uncomfortable).

rapfaria 3y ago

What do folks do to prevent these? Set a hard-limit, say 20% of maximum volume? Are there software that help on this?

thomastjeffery 3y ago
The ideal method would be a compressor. You want quiet sounds relatively louder, and loud sounds relatively more quiet. As far as software goes, that's where it gets tricky.
- pletnes 3y ago
  These exist for the military and hunters. The ones I saw long ago were probably hard/firmware based. SW must be possible but you’ll get artifacts.
itishappy 3y ago
Set a reasonable limit, which will vary wildly based on the hardware and software involved. I'm sure there's companies out there selling high-tech solutions, but you already come equipped with a pair of incredibly sensitive instruments attached to your head. A comfortable listening volume is a comfortable speaking volume, so pop an earbud out and talk to yourself! If you feel you'd need to raise your voice to be heard over your game/music, it's too loud for extended listening.
diggan 3y ago
Take breaks, and if it hurts at any point, take a long break. Video games have lots of small, quick and sharp sounds (gunshots and such), and in a competitive environment, you probably want to have the volume high enough to hear footsteps from far away, but that'll also make all the "bad" sounds very loud.
- LinuxBender 3y ago
  That brings to mind automatic gain control. It seems like there could be a market for headphones that have their own AGC to prevent a computer or music player from overriding such things. Perhaps a button to switch to AGC Normal, AGC Safe, AGC disabled? Maybe even default to AGC Safe, so one could crank up a game to where they can easily hear footsteps but then a 50 BMG next to the head would be the same volume. AGC Disabled to bring back the dynamic range of music that has a known loudness. Or perhaps it's a silly idea. [Edit] Per liminalsunset I should be referring to this as Dynamic Range Compression or DRC

chalion 3y ago

I have a mild case of tinnitus - most of the time I'm blissfully unaware of it unless it's very quiet. 20 years ago I used to play video games (PC) for long periods with headphones. I never liked loud music so I don't think I set the volume too high, but maybe with headphones the damage can accumulate over time even within the safe limits.

windowsrookie 3y ago

Some form of this has been a problem since the invention of headphones. Kids were blasting music on their walkman, then cd-player, iPod, portable DVD player, gameboy, etc. The bigger issue I think is bluetooth headphones have made it easier to be exposing your ears to noise at all times. And I tend to see way more of the under ~25 generation wearing AirPods at seemingly all times now. It was considered rude/inappropriate to wear headphones while working less than 10 years ago. But now I often see retail workers, delivery drivers, etc. wearing AirPods while working. I would think exposing your ears to noise all day long, even at low volumes can't be healthy. Just like when exercising, you need to give your muscles a break.

unsupp0rted 3y ago
For a couple months I lived in an apartment right next to the crashing waves of the ocean- it was loud. Imagine our ancestors camping there for months or years, 24/7, without windows to close. Would they all have suffered from tinnitus and hearing loss? You’d think our ears would have evolved to be more resilient than that.
- throwaway3563 3y ago
  It’s possible our ears never evolved to handle that. Instead we evolved to move around, build shelters, protect our ears etc. and generally take defensive measures against excessively loud environments.

FigurativeVoid 3y ago

I am glad that there are people doing research on this. For a long time, I have suspected that people of my generation and younger (i.e. people under 40), are going to have a lot of hearing problems. As a musician, I have always been a bit paranoid about my hearing, so I use ear plugs when exposed to loud noises. But the amount of people I know that are already having hearing issues is shocking. Looking back, I can only assume it is because they always had headphones on, and the were always far too loud. It was worse once we started driving. People would blast music as loud as the speakers would allow.

TaylorSwift 3y ago

does anyone know if it still damages the ear at below decibles, let say 80dbs, for long periods of time (10+ hours a day for 3-5 days straight)

Proven 3y ago

[dead]

SirMaster 3y ago

How is gaming any different than anything, like watching movies? It has nothing to do with gaming and everything to do with volume levels... I game all the time and I have my volume levels really low. Like way lower than I listen to music at for example.

thomastjeffery 3y ago

PUBG is infamous for this problem. Much of the game is predicated on hearing quiet sounds like footsteps, while there are often loud sounds like gunshots, or even louder sounds like the C4 explosion. Because of the assumptions based around what constitutes "cheating", players are not only strongly disincentivized from compressing and equalizing the game's audio: they are often outright banned for doing so. If you play PUBG competitively, then you are either damaging your hearing, or you are "cheating". This is one of many reasons that anti-cheat systems do more harm than good. Once upon a time, anti-cheat simply meant choosing which players you are willing to play with. That system had no trouble accommodating accessibility. Today, that's practically impossible, because servers are hosted and moderated exclusively by the game studios themselves.

jonatron 3y ago
The idea of amplifying the footsteps wav file is from early counter strike
kazinator 3y ago
Compression can be had entirely in analog, and it the compressing amplifier could be built discreetly into a headset.
- thomastjeffery 3y ago
  Yes, but that's too much of an expense to expect from the average gamer. Compression (and other signal processing like EQ) really ought to be a feature in the OS by now.
  - kazinator 3y ago
    But my understanding from this thread is that you get busted for cheating if features in the OS are detected.
tester756 3y ago
>This is one of many reasons that anti-cheat systems do more harm than good. Once upon a time, anti-cheat simply meant choosing which players you are willing to play with. That system had no trouble accommodating accessibility. Today, that's practically impossible, because servers are hosted and moderated exclusively by the game studios themselves. uh what? or maybe game devs could realize that this is an issue and provide some better configurability for such stuff?

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

Fire-Dragon-DoL 3y ago

I'm a gamer and have tinnitus. Not sure what caused it though (I don't play first person shooters), but I do wear a headset all day, for ages (gaming, then work).

j7ake 3y ago

What about the open-office workers that can only work by putting on noise-cancelling headphones and pumping noise in their ears? Is taht not equivalent to gaming 8 hours a day?