| I HATE open offices, but man is this article full of absolute nonsense. I mean that in a very literal way -- it has lots of stuff that can not be made sense of because it lacks context or any actual meaning. > I stress to my patients and the parents of my patients that if you can’t hear anything going on around you when listening to headphones, the decibel level is too high. This is just stupid. It ignores type of headphone entirely. IEMs like the ER-4P (https://www.etymotic.com/consumer/earphones/er4.html) have insane noise isolation (up to 42 dB). When using them, I can't hear someone talking to me, standing right next to me, with no music! They physical block the ear canal and create a seal blocking outside noise. > As a rule of thumb, you should only use [personal audio] devices at levels up to 60% of maximum volume for a total of 60 minutes a day. The louder the volume, the shorter your duration should be. At maximum volume, you should listen for only about five minutes a day. Again, idiotic. "60%" is entirely meaningless. It might as well be "Don't listen above FALASFDABURAGA". Headphones vary in sensitivity vastly, on some sets of IEMs -- 60% would be ear bleeding, deafeningly, painfully loud. On a high impedance, low sensitivity set of big headphones, 60% is a whisper. As a "rule of thumb" all it does is reinforce that the person who gave that quote is an idiot. > If you listen to music with earbuds or headphones at levels that block out normal discourse, you are in effect dealing lethal blows to the hair cells in your ears. ... again, quotes from people who have no understanding that there are different types of headphones. MAYBE you could claim with fully open headphones this to be the case... but what is the level of "discourse"... sigh. Again, literally nonsense because it is impossible to make sense of... > ... Music Is Distracting (entire section) ... There exists multiple categories of music WITHOUT WORDS! Shocking I know. Most developers I know listen to these types of music because, lyrics are distracting. That isn't a cut against headphones. > ... Feeling of Vulnerability ... Getting to some sad points. Again, I hate open office plans, but come on -- really -- the feeling of vulnerability being caused by headphones? It is caused by an open office layout. |
It sounds pretty smart to me. What else is the doctor supposed to do? Until the silly Beats craze took off, one could have made a statement like that and it would have been accurate for >99% of headphones users. Assuming that the user is listening to the pack-in IEMs (or IEMs with a very similar profile) plugged into a phone or iPod would have been a safe assumption. Sure, an office full of tech geeks won't match, but for the general population of headphone wearers?
And if your phones are more or less sensitive, comparing against pack-in IEMs into an iPod or phone is probably the best way that consumers have of comparing levels.
There probably was such a statement in the original source, but it was probably (rightfully) dropped by the reporters because it would have just confused people
"There exists multiple categories of music WITHOUT WORDS!"
I find such music is also very distracting. I find good symphonic music much more interesting than boring Pop music. Interesting -> distracting.
" the feeling of vulnerability being caused by headphones? It is caused by an open office layout."
IMO, the feeling of vulnerability is caused by the combination of headphones and open layout. Normally you can tell people are behind you because you hear them. If you can't hear them, then you get freaked out and feel vulnerable.