Some people sleep with white noise machines. Is it possible those could be inadvertently damaging your hearing all night long, night after night? Dr. Natalie McKee, Au.D. talks you through what it would take for that to happen. Watch more Q&As, then schedule your appointment with BNA at our Bloomington-Normal or Pontiac, IL locations.
Nancy in Bloomington asks, “Are white noise machines dangerous?” Well, white noise machines are usually used, when at a low level, to cover up sounds that maybe we don’t want to hear in the environment. But if you are concerned about the volume at which you’re listening to your white noise machine, you would evaluate it the same as any other way you would a hazardous noise. And that is by judging not only the volume, but also how long you’ll be listening to it. O.S.H.A. is the government agency that’s responsible for setting safety standards for workers, and their general rule of thumb is that 85 dB over an 8-hour workday would require hearing protection. So now your question is: what’s 85 dB? Normal conversation is usually 50-60 dB, so if you think about when you talk to somebody, you can use that. It comes down to, again, how loud and how long. So…if it’s louder than that 85 dB, that 8-hour safe time would go down. But if it’s quieter than that 85 dB, the 8-hour safe time would go up. I would say, for most people, their white noise generators are probably not loud enough to be causing any sort of hearing loss or warrant wearing hearing protection around it. I’m Dr. Natalie McKee from Bloomington-Normal Audiology, and we’re ‘hear’ for you.