Fifteen Minutes
at a Hundred
Your ears keep a daily noise budget. Every three decibels louder cuts it in half, and most of us overspend it through earbuds and gigs without noticing.
How long you can safely spend at 100 dB in a day, about the level of a loud concert or earbuds near full volume. At 85 dB the same dose takes 8 hours. NIOSH 1998
Where everyday sound sits on the decibel scale
Decibels are logarithmic: +10 dB is ten times the sound energy. Below about 70 dB, sound is not known to damage hearing. Above 85, the clock starts.
Ranges: CDC typical levels. Safe times: NIOSH 85 dB(A) / 3-dB exchange rule.
Each three decibels halves your safe time
This is the NIOSH rule. Eight hours at 85 dB becomes 15 minutes at 100 and under half a minute at 115.
Minutes per day computed as 480 ÷ 2^((L−85)/3). Occupational guideline; individual susceptibility varies.
Roughly a quarter of young people overdo their headphones
A 2022 meta-analysis of 33 studies, covering 19,046 people aged 12–34, estimated how many listen at unsafe levels.
Line chart: people with hearing loss worldwide. Mostly driven by ageing populations.
Hearing loss is tied for the largest preventable share of dementia
The 2024 Lancet Commission found 14 modifiable risk factors that together account for about 45% of dementia cases. Hearing loss accounts for 7%, level with high LDL cholesterol and ahead of everything else.
Population-attributable fractions, rounded. Hearing loss is a midlife risk factor (ages ~45–65).
The gap is in treatment, not technology
Hearing aids exist and work, but most people who need them don’t have them, and the unaddressed loss costs nearly a trillion dollars a year.
of people who could benefit from a hearing aid use one — roughly 1 in 6
WHO 2021global cost of unaddressed hearing loss each year (2019 US$)
McDaid et al. 2021of people over 60 live with disabling hearing loss
WHO 2021Noise damage is permanent, but you can prevent it
Use the 3-dB rule
Every +3 dB halves your safe time. If you must raise your voice to be heard an arm’s length away, it’s likely over 85.
Cap your headphones
Turn on your phone’s headphone-level limit. The WHO–ITU standard budgets 80 dB(A) for 40 hours a week for adults, 75 for children.
Distance and plugs
At gigs, step back from the speakers, take quiet breaks and wear earplugs. WHO’s venue standard caps sound at 100 dB(A) over any 15 minutes.
Get tested, get fitted
Free screening apps like WHO’s hearWHO take minutes. If you have hearing loss, the Lancet Commission finds hearing aids may lower dementia risk.
Sources & notes
- NIOSH (CDC), Criteria for a Recommended Standard: Occupational Noise Exposure, 1998 — 85 dB(A) for 8 h, 3-dB exchange rate. Times at each level are computed from this rule.
- CDC, “What Noises Cause Hearing Loss?” (2022) — typical levels: conversation 60–70, movie theater 74–104, motorcycles 80–110, headphones at max/concerts/sporting events 94–110, sirens 110–129, fireworks 140–160 dB; ≤70 dB(A) unlikely to cause loss. Typical ranges, not measurements of any one source.
- WHO, Global Standard for Safe Listening Venues and Events, 2022 — 100 dB(A) LAeq over 15 minutes.
- WHO–ITU H.870, Safe listening devices and systems, 2019 (rev. 2022) — 80 dB(A) for 40 h/week (adults), 75 dB(A) (children).
- Dillard, Arunda, Lopez-Perez, Martinez, Jiam, Chadha, “Prevalence and global estimates of unsafe listening practices in adolescents and young adults,” BMJ Global Health, 2022 — 23.81% (devices), 48.2% (venues; modeled, low certainty), 0.67–1.35 bn at risk.
- GBD 2019 Hearing Loss Collaborators, The Lancet, 2021 — 1.57 bn with hearing loss in 2019 (20.3%); 2.45 bn projected for 2050 (+56%). Line between endpoints is a straight connector, not a modeled path.
- WHO, World Report on Hearing, 2021 — 430 m with moderate or worse loss; ≥700 m needing rehabilitation by 2050; ~17% hearing-aid uptake among those who could benefit; >25% of over-60s with disabling loss.
- McDaid, Park & Chadha, “Estimating the global costs of hearing loss,” International Journal of Audiology, 2021 — US$981 bn per year.
- Livingston et al., Dementia prevention, intervention, and care: 2024 report of the Lancet standing Commission, The Lancet, 2024 — population-attributable fractions for 14 risk factors (≈45% combined).
Illustrative/computed: the safe-time values are derived from the NIOSH formula, not measured; the 48.2% venue figure is a modeled estimate with low certainty; the 2019→2050 connector is drawn straight between two published estimates.