The World Health Organization’s official “Deafness and hearing loss” fact sheet warns that over 1 billion young people aged 12–35 are at risk of permanent hearing loss from prolonged, high-volume headphone use and loud venues. Noise-damaged inner-ear hair cells do not regenerate — once hearing is gone, it does not come back.
If you spend hours editing and monitoring audio, this is not an abstract concern: gradually nudging the volume up during long editing sessions is one of the most common paths to damage.
Jointly developed by the WHO and the International Telecommunication Union, ITU-T H.870, “Guidelines for safe listening devices/systems,” introduces a “sound dose” model for personal audio devices: a reference exposure allowance of 80 dB(A) for 40 hours per week for adults (75 dB(A) for children). Every 3 dB increase doubles the sound energy and halves the safe listening time — 83 dB allows 20 hours, 86 dB just 10, and so on.
This standard underpins the “headphone safety” features in modern phones — volume-dose notifications and automatic limiting on both Android and iOS are implemented with reference to H.870.