Dr. Konstantina Stankovic

It's kind of a peer pressure phenomenon because most people don't even enjoy it when it's that loud, but they feel like they should because somehow it's a kind of being youthful.

There is something to it because it turns out that at loud enough sound intensities, the vestibular system is stimulated at all as well.

And there are experiments in animals that have shown this unequivocally.

So there are vestibular or balanced neurons that actually respond to loud sound.

So, yes, there is a component of that.

However, we talked about initially how delicate this organ is.

Again, it can detect sub angstrom displacements, and now you are literally hammering it with this blast noise.

It's like an elephant in a china shop.

And that is not good.

And that's what contributes to some hearing loss.

So what can you do to protect your hearing if you're going to a loud concert like that?

Definitely wear earplugs.

You can even measure sound intensities if you want to be very quantitative about it, because now you have a rough formula.

You can get a DB app on your phone.

It's free.

You can measure it.

And let's say if it's 120 decibel at the concert you're using, then wear earplugs that provide at least 30 decibel of attenuation.

When you buy these earplugs in a store, it tells you what degree of attenuation they provide, and it can be anywhere from 10 to 30.

Musicians' earplugs usually provide about 14 decibel of attenuation, so clearly that wouldn't be good enough for this event.

And you have to put them in correctly, because if they don't fit in, it doesn't matter what the number says.