Are noise-cancelling headphones to blame for young people's hearing problems?

This tracks with what is known about sudden neurologically-involved hearing loss. I have a condition where the inner ear is misformed and the cochlea is, in crude terms, prone to bruising. I&#x27;ve hit my head and gone completely deaf on one side before, and some of my hearing came back but not all of it.<p>This sort of injury, with the missing sensory input, triggers brain plasticity. A lot of relearning goes on very quickly. It took only a few days until voices stopped sounding like chipmunks because I could not hear the low frequencies. I still couldn&#x27;t hear them but I was starting to associate the new inputs with my memories of how I remember speech sounding. If I knew the person the voice was strongly gendered as male or female - with new speakers I had trouble guessing their sex. I still do.<p>From what little is known about this, exposure to sound is crucial during this phase. And a lot of people find it highly distressing. I was gripping my hands like in a panic&#x2F;stress reaction when out in public in noisy environments. It is, paradoxically considering the quasi-deafness, a kind of sensory overload. Sounds I couldn&#x27;t identify, coming from the wrong direction, with human voices sounding like garbled squeaks. A common reaction is to withdraw. But this almost certainly prevents relearning during the crucial phase of plasticity. I wish I had forced myself to go to more restaurants etc. immediately after, in hindsight. I suspect it may have resulted in less tinnitus long-term if I had done so.<p>This is so little studied it surprised me how little is out there when I went researching on what the best conditions to expose myself to after. I kind of had to make up a protocol myself.

I have the opposite problem: any words I hear spoken in the vicinity directly interrupt my brain&#x27;s language processor (which is single-threaded) and breaks any chain of thought or writing attempt.

Maybe shes wearing those noise canceling headphones because of her auditory processing condition and not the other way around??<p>This seems like basic speculative attribution error- no research here.

could be.... did a course for sound engineer, but didnt like the music biz, but still love sound... human hearing is a very funny thing, part mechanical, part electrical impulse, with some rather sophisticted processing going on in.that if you listen to a concert piano bieng played back on an ancient taped deck.with a 1 7&#x2F;8” speaker, that speaker is incapable of reproducing the low c, but you will hear it, because you can hear the harmonics of that low c, and your brain fills in the &quot;obvious&quot; fundamental tone. which means that we are always &quot;hearing things&quot;:) other wierd stuff, like going into an anekoic chamber, and sitting quietly, of which I have not done, but is apparently rather odd. so it is possible that &quot;noise cancelling&quot; which is just enough processing to create a sound wave 180°out of phase to the &quot;noise&quot;, could be messing with peoples brains, as it trys to out process the very unnatural digital processing.

It seems like you would have to wear them a lot to lose the ability to filter out noise naturally. Five hours seems insufficient, even for a teen. Maybe if you wore it all day? I want noise-canceling headphones that filter out all non-natural sounds. I want to hear the birds but not people talking or leaf blowers or trucks going beep beep beep. Maybe smarter headphones are the answer (besides, of course, making the world not so damn obnoxious).

As a hyperacusis sufferer that has never used noise-cancelling headphones, I&#x27;d have to say &#x27;unlikely&#x27;, my hyperacusis came with my anxiety - something many of the people in the article have too - and largely seems to be triggered by modern car-focused town design, and constantly being battered by loud engine sounds, revving engines and other annoyances.

<i>&gt; It affected her social life too and Sophie would leave bars and restaurants early because of the &quot;overwhelming noise&quot;.</i><p>This can also be attributed to enshittification. Restauranteurs and bar owners found that noisier places increase turnover and cause people to drink more.

While we&#x27;re on noise-cancelling headphones, this reminds me of a recent experience on a train (in the quiet carriage, of course) wearing my noise-cancelling headphones. There was a toddler crying and screaming loudly and the sound seemed to cut right through the headphones. I wonder if they&#x27;re somehow tuned to not block certain sounds (Sony WH-1000XM4).

Personal anecdote: I have tinnitus and noise-cancelling headphones sets it off worse than regular headphones. As in, I always have a constant low-level ringing, but certain triggers can 10X or 100X the intensity. As a developer, I was a heavy user of noise canceling headphones before this.

Anyone find their tinnitus got a little worse after using noise cancelling headphones?

Interesting thinking about this being connected with young people using subtitles all the time. I&#x27;ve been using noise isolating and active noise cancelling earbuds and headphones for a good 20 years while working in noisy cubicle farms, open office plans, and working at home with kids around, and I don&#x27;t think I have the problems cited here. Is it an age related thing? I didn&#x27;t start with the headphones until I was in my mid 20&#x27;s

I think many people aren&#x27;t super interested in hearing. Many times I find repeating things to my younger team members and gradually it started being something.<p>Not about hearing, I think it&#x27;s a way of being and trust me I&#x27;m not the only one noticing this.<p>We&#x27;ve even had talks with HR to see how we could adapt as honestly I thought at some point I was the one with challenges transmitting things.<p>Listening to everyone and everything in many instances is critical to problem solving...<p>Anyone else?

<i>&gt; [..] suggests that by blocking everyday sounds such as cars beeping, there is a possibility the brain can &quot;forget&quot; to filter out the noise.</i><p><i>&gt; &quot;You have almost created this false environment by wearing those headphones of only listening to what you want to listen to. You are not having to work at it,&quot; she said.</i><p>Ah yes, the natural peaceful environment of car horns blowing at &gt;100 decibels.<p>Look, any research in any medical condition is always useful. But the entire article doesn&#x27;t mention a word on the real problem: the world has just gotten too damn loud. Car horns are loud enough to cause hearing damage even at short exposure, as is extended exposure to traffic. So yeah, maybe we should primarily be looking at the modern hellscape that we&#x27;ve created instead of looking at the ways people use to manage this.

It wouldn’t surprise me. I can definitely feel a ‘pressurization’ when wearing headphones or earbuds with noise cancellation. That isn’t the “natural” way our ears operate so there must be some side effects. But I wonder if the same would be true for wearing ear plugs or earbuds that don’t have active noise cancellation but sit tightly in your canal.

I like to play white noise or coffee shop ambiance on my noise canceling headphones, I wonder if that helps?

I personally dislike having Bluetooth receivers pressed against my skull or even placing it inside my cavities therefore trying to use it as little as possible.<p>Overtime I got more electro sensitive and when there are to many wireless devices around me I get a type of temporary tinnitus which persist for a while. Grounding myself helps to relieve it.<p>I mean think about it couple of decades ago there wasn’t even one wireless device around now I receive alone 40 router signals in my apartment building. When everybody is at home in the evening I feel the electro smog tinnitus the strongest.

I blame it on ear buds and high volume.<p>Edit: But the article is also about understanding speech in a noisy area. Wouldn&#x27;t ADDH be a big factor ?