Listening to music with personal listening devices: monitoring the noise dose using a smartphone application.

OBJECTIVES: To monitor listening habits to personal listening devices (PLDs) using a smartphone application and to compare actual listening habits to self-report data.

DESIGN: Two stages: self-report listening habits questionnaire, and real-time monitoring of listening habits through a smartphone application.

STUDY SAMPLE: Overall 117 participants aged 18-34 years (mean 25.5 years) completed the questionnaire, and of them, 40 participants (mean age: 25.2 years) were monitored for listening habits during two weeks.

RESULTS: Questionnaire main findings indicated that most of the participants reported listening for 4-7 days a week, for at least 30 min at high listening levels with volume control settings at 75-100%. Monitored data showed that actual listening days per week were 1.5-6.5 d, with mean continuous time of 1.56 h, and mean volume control setting of 7.39 (on a scale of 1-15). Eight participants (22%) were found to exceed the 100% noise dose at least once during the monitoring period. One participant (2.7%) exceeded the weekly 100% daily noise dose. Correlations between actual measurements and self-report data were low to moderate.

CONCLUSIONS: Results confirmed the feasibility of monitoring listening habits by a smartphone application, and underscore the need for such a tool to enable safe listening behaviour.