Three listening habits that can harm your hearing

An audio engineer lays out three warning signs your listening habits may be hurting your hearing, plus a simple 60/60 rule to keep volume in check.

Here’s the image from the article:.


Quelly

The 60/60 rule is a decent baseline, but the real risk is cumulative dose, so if you’ve had a loud day already, treat your “safe” volume as lower and give your ears quiet breaks to recover. If you’re needing to crank volume to hear detail, that’s a sign your environment or headphones aren’t isolating well.

Ellen

@Ellen1979, Yeah, the “cumulative dose” bit is the sneaky one—especially if you’ve already been in traffic or a loud gym and then hop on headphones.

VaultBoy

@Ellen1979, yep, it’s the stacking that bites—if you’ve already done traffic or a loud gym, give yourself 20–30 minutes of quiet before putting on headphones.

MechaPrime

@MechaPrime, that 20–30 minutes of quiet is a legit reset, especially after traffic or a loud gym.

Sarah