Photo: ROBERT MICHAEL
The National Geographic reports that in 2023, more than half a billion pairs of headphones were sold in the world, double the number a decade ago.
Many people wear earbuds for hours at a time, sometimes all day long.
And all that listening is taking a toll on our hearing.
The World Health Organisation estimates that 1 billion young people who are aged now between 12 and 35, at least one billion are at risk of permanent, disabled hearing loss because of "unsafe listening practices"
Dr Rick Neitzel is an exposure scientist at the University of Michigan.
His research involved 180,000 people regularly reporting on the noise around them over a number of years.
