Experts Warn About the Dangers of Gaming

Gaming has a lot of good qualities and is certainly an exceptional learning tool. However, like with anything else, there are drawbacks to gaming, and it’s important to know what those are. Experts have discovered a danger that gamers face. They’re not saying you should never play a game again, but you should certainly know the risks.

Experts at BMJ Public Health reviewed 14 different studies which involved over 50,000 people and came to the conclusion that frequent gaming can lead to irreversible hearing loss. To clarify, most of the gaming observed contained noise levels that are roughly 100 times louder than 60dB, which is the decibel of a typical conversation. Anything above 80dB already begins to strain human ears. The paper went on to point out that adults shouldn't get more than four hours of 85dB a week, and that number is much lower for children.

Unfortunately, this news is pretty bleak for gamers. The study looked into four widely popular shooting games and found that they all contained average noise levels of 88.5 and 91.2dB through headphones, with some shooting noises reaching all the way up to 119dB. Interestingly, the study found that men tend to play for longer than women, and tend to turn the volume up higher, making males more susceptible to hearing issues. For what it's worth, the paper did clarify that a lot of these studies were done in the '90s, so more up-to-date research needs to be done.