Video gamers worldwide may be risking irreversible hearing loss and/or tinnitus—persistent ringing/buzzing in the ears—finds a systematic review of the available evidence, published in the open access journal BMJ Public Health.
What evidence there is suggests that the sound levels reported in studies of more than 50,000 people often near, or exceed, permissible safe limits, conclude the researchers.
And given the popularity of these games, greater public health efforts are needed to raise awareness of the potential risks, they urge.
While headphones, earbuds, and music venues have been recognized as sources of potentially unsafe sound levels, relatively little attention has been paid to the effects of video games, including e-sports, on hearing loss, say the researchers.
Turn your volume down, bros.
I SAID TURN THE VOLUME DOWN.
I’ve had tinnitus for decades, and it SUCKS. I’ve always been careful for my hearing, but after a concussion it arrived and never went away.
I play games with most sounds off. I can’t use headphones, wearing them gives me a migraine no matter the volume.
I’ve had hearing tests, seen a specialist. I have no hearing loss, but I do have misaphonia and tinnitus. The combination is pure hell, there is no respite.
I can’t distinguish voices in chats well enough to follow what’s being said if more than one person is talking. It’s even worse online when I can’t lip read to decode what’s being said.
Project your earholes.
Sorry to hear that
Can you drown out the tinnitus with more volume?
Not as a rule, no. I end up with a bigger headache and more ringing.
Tinnitus sucks ass… seriously take care of your hearing.
Often they are just terribly mixed for headphones too.
Especially shooters where the sfx of the guns are just way too loud for how often they are repeated and in comparison to everything else.
I’d almost like to see a shooter game where everyone has silencers on just for the improved acoustics and not destroying ears without messing with settings (and you don’t want to lower footstep sfx even if you want to lower gunshot sfx and they are rarely separate sliders).
Glad there’s attention on this.
Another area that would probably be wise to study is increased resistance in haptics and possible arthritis or repeated strain injuries long term.
Every time I open a new game, the volume is set to the absolute max, which is orders of magnitude louder than any other sound on my computer. When I go to change the sound settings, I usually have to put the slider comically low before it gets to an acceptable volume range. At that point fine tuning it becomes kind of difficult.
Seriously, why can’t most games get volume right?
Best game ever for sounds (in this context), imho, is dysmantle. People have described the sound track as “hikers listening to birds”. Music only happens in specific places, it’s mostly very relaxing/peaceful, and other than that it’s just listening to occasional zombies/turrets, environmental sounds, audio recordings, and breaking stuff.
I always turn the music and sfx way down (voice stays pretty high, sfx about 20% lower, and music very low) so I legit didn’t notice the lack of music for 22 hours of actual play time (out of the about 100 I put into it). But I didn’t change the sound settings at all for it, it was perfect.
Fuckin great game.
Weird, I don’t have this problem. Probably some bullshit manufacturers “gaming mode elite” software package setting.
Some games I play I do find I have to crank dialog up and effects/music down.
Yeah I hate this, even with windows at like 25% most games are still defaulting to too loud
Huh, What?!
-Artillery men, Rock/Metal bands
I played video games for 22 years: no hearing loss
Practiced bagpipes indoor, big room, a few times: like 30dB hearing loss.
Idk
bagpipes are the loudest thing I’ve ever experienced, those things are a silent killer
Now think of the damage you could’ve caused the rest of us!
We’re saved!
Who use earbuds or those big heaphones past like 12 years old lol
Adukts sit in their car in silence
🤨
Airpod type devices should be looked at as well, lots of people are gonna have fucked ears for a long time.
You mean earbuds?
WHAT!?
BOOM HEADSHOT.
Ohh fuckin hacks mate.
No worries for me, I’ve had tinnitus for over 40 years, pretty sure it’s neurological for me, not hearing related.
HUH, WHAT DID YOU SAY?
Shit man I’ve been suffering from hearing loss for like 20 years (partially due to infections and the rest is listening to music with headphones at high volumes), and tinnitus for at least 12.
I’m ahead of the curve. 😎
computer sounds are way too loud
i have my pc volume set to 50% and still consistently need to turn the master volume for every new game i buy down to 50%, or at least 75%, just so it stops causing physical pain in my ears
I think most people’s setup is windows at 100% and control the volume directly on the headset.
Jokes on them! I don’t even need to worry about video games doing it to me. I’ve already got some minor hearing loss in one ear from a history of childhood ear infections. That, and my other ear is probably gonna end up with hearing loss from how loud I listen to music. Games ain’t got nothing on my music listening habit!
Volume sliders never sound linear to me. I also keep them fairly low. This means that each individual step is surprisingly large in volume difference. I don’t get people who go to max volume-- doesn’t it hurt your ears? My laptop stays on 10-20% and some applications are turned down from that even further (TF2 is comically low).
