Could the active noise reduction disrupt the hearing of the youngest?

Based on the hypothesis that an administrative assistant could have developed an auditory treatment disorder (TTA) because of the excessive port of active noise reduction headphones, the BBC alerts the potential dangers of technology in A recent article.

According to Sophie's ENT, 25, her emerging difficulty in understanding the sounds and words pronounced could be linked to the fact that she has undressed her brain to hear everyday sounds. The specialist, as is a growing number of his colleagues, therefore claims that more studies be carried out on the excessive use of noise reduction technologies injected into headphones.

For the time being, no less than five British audiology services interviewed by the BBC agree that the brain must be confronted with everyday sounds to better fight them, especially during its development. A postulate that does not mix with noise reduction systems that are increasingly present in our lives.

As a rule, what damages hearing?

A hearing loss can be caused by a relatively short exposure at the too high sound level of a concert or on a particularly noisy site, in the same way as listening prolonged to a volume greater than 85 dB.

The sounds reach the brain through the cochlea, a sensitive organ of the inner ear containing the famous hair cells. The nerve endings of the latter convert the sound to an electrical signal transmitted directly to the brain. It is this delicate mechanism that can be temporarily or irreversibly damaged by strong sounds. It may therefore seem surprising that isolating oneself from potentially dangerous sounds using noise reduction headphones can also have an effect on auditory capacity.

As a reminder, the noise reduction uses microphones of the headphones to capture the surrounding sounds before canceling them thanks to a principle of inverted waves. The user is then immersed in an appreciable bubble of silence to spare the noises of an open space, a crowded conference room or public transport.

On paper, noise reduction therefore has undeniable qualities to protect our hearing, both to save the intensity of the horn from a nearby heavy goods vehicle and to avoid pushing the volume of its music too much in an environment noisy. However, its abuse could cause side effects in some people, in the long term.

In the long term, isolation could deregulate our hearing

The various audiologists interviewed by the BCC said they had found an increase in the number of young people being recommended for them for hearing problems. In the majority of cases, they noted normal audiograms results, despite real difficulties in treating sound. According to Claire Benton, Vice-President of the British Academy of Audiology, blocking everyday sounds permanently, the brain would forget to filter them in the long run. So, always choosing what we want to listen to or not, the brain would therefore become more lazy in the face of reality. This phenomenon would be all the more problematic for children, whose brain is still in development until the end of adolescence.

In an increasingly noisy world, both in society and in an urban environment, headphones with active noise allow you to isolate themselves effectively and simply. But their democratization is today such that some people could abuse it to the point of modifying their perception of the environment when they are no longer worn.

This observation can relate to traditional earplugs. ENTs recommend hyperacusic people and suffering from tinnitus to use them only if necessary, when the sound becomes really unbearable. If they are worn daily, even when the surrounding sounds are normal intensity, the symptoms could worsen, because the brain gets used to everything.

In short, there is no problem to isolate yourself using active noise reduction. However, it is preferable to use it only in case of real need or in the context of musical listening. Cutting into the world for several hours a day for no reason, for several years, could potentially deregulate the hearing system in the long term. Angela Alexander, audiologist of the support interviewed by the BBC, also suggests strongly to use the transparency mode of headphones to stay from time to time to external sounds.