Does Wearing Earbuds cause hearing loss? ...what about Bacteria in the ear?
The source of this idea seems to be a 1992 study from the medical journal Laryngoscope in which Itzhak Brook and William Jackson measured bacteria levels found on 20 audio headsets of the type provided on commercial airline flights. At the beginning of the experiment, the typical headset had 60 microorganisms on its surface; after an hour’s use of the headphones by a volunteer, that number went up to 650 – roughly 11, not 700, times more. This could suggest that headphones make germs procreate like crazy, an icky enough image, but the authors say it’s more likely that the heat and humidity created in the user’s ears cause “resident organisms from the deeper skin layers and the sweat and sebaceous glands” to congregate out in the open, which to some might seem far ickier.
So we’ve got the general idea that headphones use for an hour = lots more bacteria, but where did that 700-times thing come from? Here we turn to the “Practical Traveler” column in the New York Times of January 3, 1993. Addressing the topic of germs lingering on airplane pillows, headrest covers, and headsets, writer Betsy Wade summarizes the Brook and Jackson report as saying their “research showed a 100- to 700-fold increase in bacteria” on the headset. Now, the Straight Dope staffers and I have turned that study upside down and can’t fathom how Wade got her numbers. Whether they arose from a cryptic reading of the data, a misreading, or a proofreader’s slip, it’s of such that Internet factoids are born.
The bigger question is: fine, wearing headphones causes the ears to teem with bacteria; other than grossing us out, does this affect our lives? Unclear. Though they warn of potential risk, Brook and Jackson couldn’t tie the germ increase to actual health trouble; a Malaysian study of 118 phone-support workers who used headsets seven hours a day found that 11 had chronic ear, nose, and throat problems, but in only four cases were those were related to ear infections. Other ear research suggests that pretty much anything you stick in there – stethoscopes, hearing aids, audiological gear – comes out covered in microbes, but those microbes don’t necessarily make anyone particularly sick. So unless you’re prone to getting ear infections – or you’re one of those germ freaks we all know and love – the headphones-bacteria effect may be more curiosity than wake-up call.
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