When we walk on the street every day, we can see a lot of people wearing headphones on the street. Regardless of men, women, young or old, the headset is almost as standard.
On campus, you can see some students wearing earphones listening to music while walking, and some students even wearing earphones when they are in the car;
You can also see many people wearing earphones on public transportation, and some people have very loud earphones, which can be heard standing on the side.
Nowadays, people like to wear headphones for a long time to listen to music. I wonder if you have paid attention to this practice. Will it cause damage to your hearing?
I don’t think people are paying too much attention to this problem. It’s okay. Today, I’m going to give you a biology lesson. From the root, I will talk about whether I am deaf after wearing headphones for a long time.
Let’s first understand how ears work
When there is sound around the human ear, it drives the surrounding air molecules to produce a series of vibrations. These vibrations are sound waves, which spread from the source of the sound.
When the sound reaches the outer ear, the sound is transferred to the outer auditory canal and reaches the tympanic membrane through the sound collection of the auricle.
When a sound wave comes, the sound wave hits the tympanic membrane, which will cause the tympanic membrane to vibrate.
There are three closely connected ossicles in the middle ear cavity behind the tympanic membrane. When sound waves vibrate the tympanic membrane, the ossicles will also vibrate. These three ossicles amplify the sound and transmit it to the inner ear.
The last bone of the three ossicles is connected to a tiny membrane called the oval window.
When the ossicles began to vibrate, the oval window also vibrated. On the other side of the oval window is the cochlear duct filled with fluid.
When the oval window is vibrated, the liquid also starts to flow. There are thousands of ear hair cells in the cochlea, with tiny cilia growing on the top.
When the fluid flows, the cilia of these cells are impacted. After a series of complex bioelectrical changes, the ear hair cells convert sound signals into bioelectrical signals that are transmitted to the brain through the auditory nerve.
The brain then processes and integrates the received information to produce hearing. This is how the ear works.
Why does wearing headphones cause hearing damage to ears?
As we have mentioned above, in our human body, sound is mainly transmitted to the brain through ear hair cells.
We often say that people who wear earphones often will damage their hearing after improper use of earphones. Most of the reasons are that the ear hair cells are damaged. Ear hair cells are the most important part of everyone’s ears. .
Ear hair cells are very sensitive to loud sounds, and sound can easily damage ear hair cells or even cause ear hair cells to die.
Under normal circumstances, earphones enter our ears after passing through a period of air transmission.
In the process of transmission, the high frequency part has been absorbed by the air, so it will not cause too much damage to the ear hair cells.
But wearing headphones is different, especially in-ear headphones. The sound source is very close to the inner ear. The sound wave conduction range is small and concentrated. The sound pressure will be directly transmitted to the inner ear and concentrated on the tympanic membrane. There is no room for buffering. .
As a result, nerve endings are stimulated and ear hair cells are damaged, which not only causes auditory fatigue, but also causes hearing loss.
Also pay attention when wearing headphones, the sound of the headphones should not be too loud, and the volume of the headphones should be controlled.
If you want to use headphones to listen to music at the maximum volume, then your ear hair cells are on the verge of death.
In addition, you need to pay attention to that too loud voices can also affect the brain. Friendly reminder: There is a risk of becoming mad!
Moreover, it should be noted that once hearing is damaged, it is really damaged. This damage is irreversible. Ear hair cells cannot grow after being injured. If there are more damaged ear hair cells, your hearing will be too. Decreased.
What can we do to protect our hearing?
First, don’t wear earphones for a long time. You need to take off the earphones after wearing them for an hour, so that your ears can rest a little bit, so as to relieve hearing fatigue.
Second, control the volume. Don’t open the earphone business too loudly. If the sound is too loud, it will definitely damage your hearing.