OFFICE NOISE – Distraction, Disturbance or Deafness?

Ross Thomson

The trend to open-plan offices over recent years has often brought with it, not only a loss of privacy but also surrounding-noise disturbance. These days many staff are resorting to wearing iPods and listening to music while they work, in order to mask distracting noise. This trend in the workplace to mask one source of noise with another can affect people's long term hearing however. In this article we discuss how hearing loss occurs and what you can do to protect your hearing.

How can noise affect my long term hearing?

Brian Fligor, director of Diagnostic Audiology at Children's Hospital, Boston explains that
"If you're using your iPod with the ear buds that came with it and you turn the volume up to about 90% of maximum and you listen a total of two hours a day, five days a week, our best estimates are that the people who have more sensitive ears will develop a rather significant degree of hearing loss."
Now admittedly most of us don't have the volume set at 90%, but it's not that uncommon to be standing by someone in the gym or in an elevator, where you can actually hear the music that is pounding into their ears! So with that in mind let's take a look at how noise can affect our long term hearing.

When it comes to noise-induced hearing loss, the main area where the ear is damaged is not the eardrum, but is actually deeper inside. Damage occurs where the nerves that bring the sound message up to the brain connects with the inner ear. This involves some very specialized cells called the ear's hair cells.

When hair cells are overexposed or stimulated at too high a level, over too long a duration, they end up being metabolically exhausted (i.e overworked). As a result they temporarily lose their function. This means that sound has to be made louder in order for you to hear it. These cells can recover after a single exposure, but if they are exposed to loud noise long enough and often enough, they end up dying. At this point you lose that functional ability inside your ear. The important point here is that the ear's hair cells that die are not replaceable!

So how loud is too loud?

Sound is measured in decibels with the number of decibels increasing as the sound level increases. The chart below gives the relative decibels for common examples.

Hearing experts generally consider that any sound below 85 decibels (dBs) to be in the "safe" range. More than that, and over time, there's a good chance you'll damage your ears.

Open-plan office noise levels would probably not exceed the 70dB mark. However, it is often because of the distracting nature of this noise (i.e. other people's conversations) that people try and block it out by some louder noise coming from their iPod! If people continue to use iPods with high volumes for extended periods then they are likely to get some degree of hearing loss.

So what can you do?

Like any potential hazard in the workplace the rules of Eliminate, Isolate or Minimize still apply. (Elimination of office noise is not likely to be a possibility.)

While it is unlikely that the general office noise exceeds the OSH limit of 85dB, Isolation and Minimization actions are still worth pursuing, in order to reduce the effects of office noise to individuals.

This can be done by:

• Ensuring good separation between each individual's desk.

• If renovating, include acoustic absorbing materials as part of the installation.

• Remove noisy printers and other machinery to a separate room.

• Lower noise levels of phone ring tones.

• Develop a culture of consideration for others in the room, when speaking on the phone to an outside caller.

• Have separate meeting rooms where more vigorous discussions can be held.

If these actions still don't reduce the disturbance enough then suggest to staff to consider using ear muffs or ear plugs in preference to their iPod. These strategies will all help to reduce the possibility of noise-induced hearing loss.

Ross Thomson is a Director of Joyworkz Ltd.

REFERENCES

Blue, Laura: How bad are iPods for your hearing? Article dated 28 July 2008, Time.com - Health and Science

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1827159,00.html

Brophy Marcus, Mary: For iPod users, a budding problem. Article dated 3/5/2006 USAToday.com - Tech Products

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/2006-03-05-ipod-hearing_x.htm

Department of Labour, Noise in the Workplace - Approved Code of Practice for the Management of.

http://www.osh.govt.nz/order/catalogue/15.shtml

National Foundation for the Deaf Inc. Noise in the Workplace.

http://www.nfd.org.nz/?t=74

New Zealand Audiological Society

http://www.audiology.org.nz/Public/HowDoesMyHearingWork.aspx

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