DeKALB | Listening to loud music on headphones for extended periods of time has harmful, long-term effects on hearing, according to experts. Listeners may not notice the damages.

“When you’re young you don’t hear it and you don’t care,” said clinical audiologist Diane ScheckLong. “In adulthood, one would notice.”

People who listen to music at 80 percent of volume capacity should keep it to fewer than 90 minutes a day, according to a recent study of 100 doctoral students. The study, co-authored by Brian Fligor and Cory Portunff found that anyone who listened at 100 percent for more than five minutes risked hearing loss.

“I listen to music one to two hours a day while working out and going to class,” said Ted Martin, a junior elementary education major. “I listen to it at the max volume.”

The sound-producing part inside headphones is called the coil, said assistant technology professor Abul Azad. A tiny, thin diaphragm passes information through the coil. The coil’s up-and-down movement produces sound waves.

“When you make more sound, that makes the coil move faster up and down,” Azul said.

ScheckLong said hearing loss is a problem that comes with age, but listening to loud music for long periods of time speeds up that process.

Inside the hearing organ in the ear — the cochlea — are tiny hair cells. When sound waves pass through the cochlea, the hair cells pick up the waves, which allows us to hear. Sound waves that are too loud for too long knock over those hair cells and they eventually die.

“Listening to loud music for a prolonged period of time kills those hair cells, and they cannot be regenerated,” ScheckLong said.

Listeners don’t notice the hearing loss because it isn’t necessarily a lack of sound they’re experiencing.

“It may be caused by high-frequency loss, or the high pitches, not necessarily sound,” ScheckLong said. “[Listeners] may start noticing clarity problems. Speech may not be as clear.”

When pumping up the volume in their music players, listeners may not even consider the dangers they’re exposing themselves to.

“I am aware but I’m not worried about it,” Martin said. “I don’t have any hearing loss that I’m aware of.”

The hearing loss could take up to 10 years to take place. While it’s not a big problem now, it may be in a few years.

“This is definitely a problem,” ScheckLong said. “Baby boomers experience hearing loss today because we went to concerts. It’s definitely a problem we’re going to see with Generation X down the line.”