Estimating Earphone Level and Dose Using Real-Ear Measures and Ecological Momentary Assessment

Prior work estimating sound exposure dose from earphone use has typically measured earphone use time with retrospective questionnaires or device-based tracking, both of which have limitations. This research note presents an exploratory analysis of sound exposure dose from earphone use among college-aged adults using real-ear measures to estimate exposure level and ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to estimate use time.

Earphone levels were measured at the ear drum of 53 college students using their own devices, earphones, and preferred music and speech stimuli at their normal listening volume. Participants completed 1 week of EMA, where they reported on their minutes of earphone use every 2 hr. Based on the EMAs and their measured earphone levels, sound exposure doses from earphone use were calculated.

Compliance on EMA was 73%, comparable to most studies using this method in audiology research. Earphone levels were lower than those reported by most prior literature. The average listening level across music and speech, with A-weighting and diffuse-field corrections, was 60 dBA. Earphone use time was also lower than most prior work. Most participants had doses under 1%.

Using EMA to track earphone use is a potentially simple way to facilitate measurements of sound exposure from earphone use without relying on retrospective questionnaires or limiting the sample to specific devices, earphones, or apps. Evidence was also found for potentially lower sound levels and sound exposure doses from earphone use among college-aged adults than previously reported.

https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.28205072.