‘I Don’t Mind Looking Weird’: Are We Finally Listening to the Dangers of Hearing Loss?

IIf you attended a music festival this summer, you may have noticed that earplugs are having a moment. Earplugs were once ugly, disposable foam balls that crudely muffled sound, but a new generation are reusable and designed to let through a wider range of sound while neutralizing frequencies that can lead to hearing problems. They’re also, for the first time, pretty cool.

The brand with the most brand recognition is Loop, which markets its products as a type of jewellery, costing around £20 to £60. Loop collaborated with the prestigious British dance festival Houghtonwhile rival player Alps had concession stands in Boomtown, Elrow, All points East And BST Hyde Park. For Jono Heale, director of ACS Custom – whose molded earplugs are considered a standard in the music industry – this stigma-free marketing is long overdue: “A few years ago, festivals felt like they were recognizing some form of liability by having us there. Recently I have been approached to work with more people, I think because they are becoming concerned.”

That concern may come from hearing about charity Tinnitus UK recently discovered that 7.6 million Brits suffer from the condition, 1.5 million of them seriously; in February, the World Health Organisation stated that “more than 1 billion young adults are at risk of permanent, preventable hearing loss due to unsafe listening practices.” The feeling that this problem is affecting more and more young people is supported by writer and DJ Seb Wheelerwho guest edited Mixmag’s Tinnitus Awareness Week coverage this year. “Every time I post about tinnitus,” he says, “my DMs get flooded.”

Olivia Swash, a music journalist and podcast producer, suffered from a mild form of tinnitus in her early 20s: “After going to gigs, bars or clubs that are too loud, without wearing earplugs, the ringing will be much worse in the days after . She wears her Apple AirPods Pro in noise-canceling mode during performances — a recent New York Times study, which advocated for good earplugs, showed this reduces the decibels reaching your ears. “The sound is much better,” says Swash, “and I don’t really care if it looks weird.”

Most wisdom about what is considered safe is rooted in workplace health and safety practices Matthew Allop – an audiologist for Harley Street Hearing who has a YouTube channel dedicated to hearing – explains: “In the UK, the safe threshold is exposure to 85 decibels (dB) over an eight-hour period.” This is the limit at which an employer should provide PPE, such as hearing protectors. “However, for every three decibels the threshold rises,” Allsop continues, “you halve the time you can be safely exposed. So at 100 dB you can technically only be exposed for 15 minutes before you start to damage your ears.”

Frighteningly, the average club volume is around 100 dB, while according to the Musicians’ Union, even a classical orchestra can reach 94 dB and a rock band can peak at 125 dB. If, like me, you are always at the front, the vibrations may be stronger, but the toll in decibels is even worse. Why do we do this to ourselves?

“People like a loud performance,” says Léon Pearce, who has mixed the sound for live performances by the Zutons, 10cc and Beth Orton. “It’s a visceral experience. That bone-shaking energy beating in your chest. It gets your attention. It’s too loud to talk to anyone, so you all feel it together.” Heale agrees: “Humans pick up sound from our bodies through conduction, not just through our ears. It increases our adrenaline levels when we feel sounds in our body.”

It can be difficult to tear yourself away, but earbud sellers say it’s important to take breaks even when using their products. This view is echoed by Laurence Kendall, an audiovisual technician. “Give your ears a rest and find a spot in the crowd that feels more comfortable for your ears. Bass frequencies aren’t actually that damaging, so finding a place where the treble is a bit rounded will definitely help.”

Amid the increasing use of earplugs to combat hearing damage, there’s another, simpler solution: turn down the volume. But unlike using earplugs, there’s still a stigma attached to asking someone to turn it down. It is seen as incredibly cool and even presumptuous, despite the dangers of prolonged exposure to loud noise. “I never thought to ask,” Swash says. “I would assume, perhaps wrongly, that the sound engineer certainly knows what he is doing.”

A rare voice advocating for the right to say “this is too loud” is Gregory Scott, founder of the SoundPrint app. This global database of sound level measurements, openly sourced from its users, was created “to help people find quiet locations that are more conducive to conversation while protecting people’s hearing health,” says Scott. For example, SoundPrint’s findings show that London has the loudest bars and restaurants in Europe – no surprise to anyone who has tried a romantic date in the capital.

“It’s hard to know for sure if it’s too loud in a place,” continues Scott, whose app includes a decibel reader that you can show to a venue manager. “People think there is a stigma attached to whoever raises the issue of noise. But as the world gets louder, it causes damage to our bodies that we cannot ignore.”