By India McCarty
A new report has found a troubling connection between a surge in hearing problems in young people and AirPods.
“There is a difference between hearing and listening,” Renee Almeida, an adult audiology clinical lead at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, told the BBC. “We can see that listening skills are suffering.”
Almeida shared that she and her colleagues have begun seeing a surge in auditory processing disorder, a condition where the brain has trouble understanding sounds and spoken words.
Dr. Stephanie McCarter reported a similar phenomenon to the Weston A. Price Foundation, sharing a trend she has recently begun to see: young people coming in with complaints of headaches, difficulty concentrating and tinnitus, a persistent ringing in the ears.
The cause? McCarter points to AirPods, the “common thread” between all of her patients. She shared that they wore the small headphones for “hours every day,” but once they stopped wearing them, “their symptoms often disappeared completely.”
McCarter’s research also showed that AirPods can emit radiation up to 100,000 times above the levels that we know can affect human biology.
“We’re not dealing with old analog waveforms anymore, but with pulses that are very biologically active against cells,” she said. “Your cells and DNA are like antennas, easily disrupted by these signals. I strongly advocate against wearing AirPods.”
Related: Experts Warn About Video Game-Related Hearing Damage
However, a report from The Dispatch explained that the radiation emitted from wireless headphones is non-ionizing, meaning it is not harmful. Examples of things that emit ionizing radiation include X-rays, nuclear power plants and atomic weapons.
“The only potential for harm is if the emission levels are so intense your tissues actually get heated up, so wireless devices are regulated to operate such that practically no heating can occur due to the wireless emissions,” Dr. Christopher Collins, a radiology professor at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine, told the outlet.
Regardless of radiation levels, many experts recommend turning down the volume on your headphones.
“These sensory cells [in your ears] can actually be injured by exposure to loud music or loud noise for too long,” Dr. Valerie Pavlovich Ruff, an audiologist, told the Cleveland Clinic. “You cannot just fix this cumulative damage. Those sensory cells will no longer allow you to hear at certain frequencies. They’re just gone.”
The World Health Organization states that the limit for a safe listening environment is 80dB; any louder, and you risk losing more of these sensory cells.
“You get one set of ears in life and they can’t be replaced,” Ruff emphasized. “If you’re using headphones or earbuds, it’s important to train yourself to listen to music at a softer level.”
Experts agree — the best way to save your hearing, and potentially cut down on any exposure to radiation, is to put the AirPods away and simply turn down the volume.
Read Next: Expert Weighs In On Age Appropriate Devices For Children
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