Objective Measurement of Listening Device Use and Its Relation to Hearing Acuity

To examine whether adolescents exceed recommended noise exposure limits when using personal listening devices (PLDs) and to investigate the relationship between objectively measured PLD use and hearing thresholds.

Cross-sectional study.

This study was embedded within an ongoing prospective birth cohort study in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. Data were collected from May 2017 to September 2019.

A smartphone application was developed to measure daily noise exposure from PLDs. Listening habits were monitored among 314 adolescents with a mean age of 13 years 7 months (SD, 5 months), of whom 51.6% were male. Hearing acuity was measured by pure tone audiometry, and tympanometry was performed in both ears.

Within the study group, 2.2% adolescents exceeded the recommended daily noise dose (85 dBA as an 8-hour time-weighted average) among all days when the application was active and 9.9% when among only the listening days. No significant correlation was found between the daily noise dose from PLDs and pure tone thresholds.

The majority of adolescents exhibited listening habits that could be considered safe. As noise-induced hearing loss develops slowly over time, it could be that the effects of PLD use on hearing are not evident yet in this young population with a relatively short duration of PLD use.