Music – A double edged sword for students in COVID scenario

Background: Hearing loss is often thought of as a natural phenomenon of the aging process. However younger people with repeated usage of ear phone music are reporting nowadays with hearing impairment and more during this COVID pandemic era. In today’s society, these devices are indispensable and are part of day‑to‑day life and because of the restriction on outdoor movement in COVID pandemic more and more people are reliant on ear phone music to allay boredom. Hence, this study was conducted to create awareness regarding prolonged exposure to loud noise either through an MP3 player or cell phone music.
Materials and Methods: A prospective study was done compromising 400 students from Shri Adichunchanagiri Institute of Medical Sciences from March 2020 to December 2020. They were divided into four groups using a questionnaire, Group A comprising 100 students who had a habit of listening to music through ear phones at least 2 h a day, Group B comprising 100 students who are used to earphone music less than 1 h per day and Group C comprising of 100 students who very occasionally use ear phones, but hear music mostly through speakers and Group D comprising of 100 students who are not used to ear phone music. All the 400 students studied were attending online classes as per the college schedule which constituted 3-4 hours daily. All the groups were subjected to pure tone audiometry when they reported back to their regular offline classes as the pandemic reduced in January 2021 and the audiogram obtained.
Results and Observations: The study revealed high frequency hearing loss in 6% of Group A and 2% in Group B; whereas, in there were no hearing impairment in Groups C and D indicating a significant role of prolonged ear phone music as a cause of high frequency hearing loss in students. The thin percentage and absence of hearing loss in Groups B, C, and D suggests the impact of the duration of exposure also has a role in the pathology.
Conclusion: This study proves beyond doubt that the prolonged usage of loud ear phone music is harmful to the ears and also the COVID induced movement restriction precipitated the indiscriminate use of ear phone music which further increased the causation.