Video gamers worldwide may be risking irreversible hearing loss and/or tinnitus—persistent ringing/buzzing in the ears—finds a systematic review of the available evidence, published in the open access journal BMJ Public Health.
What evidence there is suggests that the sound levels reported in studies of more than 50,000 people often near, or exceed, permissible safe limits, conclude the researchers.
And given the popularity of these games, greater public health efforts are needed to raise awareness of the potential risks, they urge.
While headphones, earbuds, and music venues have been recognized as sources of potentially unsafe sound levels, relatively little attention has been paid to the effects of video games, including e-sports, on hearing loss, say the researchers.
Often they are just terribly mixed for headphones too.
Especially shooters where the sfx of the guns are just way too loud for how often they are repeated and in comparison to everything else.
I’d almost like to see a shooter game where everyone has silencers on just for the improved acoustics and not destroying ears without messing with settings (and you don’t want to lower footstep sfx even if you want to lower gunshot sfx and they are rarely separate sliders).
Glad there’s attention on this.
Another area that would probably be wise to study is increased resistance in haptics and possible arthritis or repeated strain injuries long term.
Yeah, gunshots really loud, footsteps really quiet is common.
Footsteps very soft you might even say.