TELEPHONE HEADSETS & HEARING DAMAGE
This site is sponsored by Crucible Technologies. It has information on telephone headsets and is designed to help you choose the most suitable telephone headset for the job.
Can use of headsets cause hearing damage?
Headsets are no more dangerous to hearing than handsets. However, in call centres, employees that spend many hours using a headset have to be careful about the levels of sound that they are exposed to.
A daily exposure above 85 dB for a period of 8 hours is deemed as high risk and the employee needs to have hearing tests as well as provided with hearing protectors, till the noise can be brought down to acceptable level.
The exposure time is the amount of time that the user is actually on the telephone and listening. If say a person is on the telephone for 6 to 8 hours a day, it can be safely assumed that at least half of this time is spent on speaking and only about 2 to 3 hours of the time is spent on listening to the caller. If say only 1 or 2 hours are spent on the telephone, then generally, headset usage is not a risk to hearing.
Some headsets, designed for use in call centres, are now starting to be sold with a maximum output limit. For example, if this limit is 85dB, then irrespective of what use they are put to, they will always limit the noise output to less than 85 dB and protect the hearing of the user. However, an 85dB limit can cause difficulty with some conversations and a 91dB limit is a more practical compromise.
The table below shows typical conversation durations before there is a high risk of hearing damage, based on different Limiting levels.
|
Limit Level (dB) |
Duration of headset use before High Risk levels are reached. |
|
85 |
indefinite |
|
91 |
6 to 8 hours |
|
95 |
1 to 2 hours |
|
100 |
About an hour |
Businesses may already have a large number of headsets that do not limit the level of sound. There are adaptors available that can be retro-fitted to suitable headsets to limit the sound down to 91 dB. This picture shows an adaptor fitted to a headset using the Quick Disconnect connector.
