Young people risk long-term damage to their hearing if they don't change their listening habits, according to a study of high school students in Ontario released as part of a prevention campaign.

At part of a project by the Hearing Foundation of Canada, 30 per cent of the 145 students surveyed listened at levels of 91 decibels or higher for an average of 2.9 hours a day — a level and length of time at which hearing experts said long-term damage can occur.

"What's happening is that the hearing loss starts now with the young people," Dr. Robert Harrison, director of the Auditory Science Laboratory at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children, said Monday.

"They don't recognize it, but it becomes clear in 10 years time or 15 years times when they all start to develop a hearing loss which normally they wouldn't get until they're in their 60s."

Ear buds in all day

"The loudest was a young man who listened to his sound at the level 121 decibels," said Aubrey LeBlanc, chair of the board of the Hearing Foundation of Canada, a national charity dedicated to the prevention of hearing loss. "That is the equivalent of standing next to a running jet engine in an airplane at a distance of 20 feet [six metres]."

The survey results aren't scientifically rigorous, but they are telling in terms of revealing the extent of the problem, LeBlanc said.

The Ontario results are consistent with research studies in the U.S., Europe and Australia that show the average level of noise exposure is contributing to hearing loss at earlier ages, Harrison said.

People may also start out listening to music at a low level but turn it up to drown out background noise. By the end of the day, they've gotten used to listening at a higher decibel-level, said Alex Sévigny, a professor of communication studies and multimedia at McMaster University in Hamilton.

Positive peer pressure

The students are sharing common-sense recommendations with each other, such as:

• Set the level of players in a quiet environment and don't turn it up when entering a noisy subway or classroom.
• Use ear phones that fit snugly into the ear canal or around the head to block out surrounding noise.

The volume of personal music players isn't the whole problem, said Kathleen Flear, 16, who was one of the researchers.

"Some kids have their ear buds in all during class, and on their way home, and you know when they're making dinner and then when they're going to sleep," said Flear. "So some people can listen to it for up to 10 hours a day, and it's just crazy."

Flear and the other young researchers are part of a two-day summit aimed at helping the foundation develop a pilot program that will start in three high schools in spring 2009. Grade 12 students will show younger students how to protect their hearing and still enjoy music, using lectures as well as blogs and social networking sites.

It may not be easy to make the changes. One researcher said even after his friend saw the results, he was indifferent, saying he liked his music and didn't plan to change his habits.

The preventive education program for high school students is funded by a grant from the province's Ontario Trillium Foundation and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

With files from the Canadian Press