Video gamers worldwide may be risking irreversible hearing loss and/or tinnitus—persistent ringing/buzzing in the ears—finds a systematic review of the available evidence, published in the open access journal BMJ Public Health.
What evidence there is suggests that the sound levels reported in studies of more than 50,000 people often near, or exceed, permissible safe limits, conclude the researchers.
And given the popularity of these games, greater public health efforts are needed to raise awareness of the potential risks, they urge.
While headphones, earbuds, and music venues have been recognized as sources of potentially unsafe sound levels, relatively little attention has been paid to the effects of video games, including e-sports, on hearing loss, say the researchers.
Best game ever for sounds (in this context), imho, is dysmantle. People have described the sound track as “hikers listening to birds”. Music only happens in specific places, it’s mostly very relaxing/peaceful, and other than that it’s just listening to occasional zombies/turrets, environmental sounds, audio recordings, and breaking stuff.
I always turn the music and sfx way down (voice stays pretty high, sfx about 20% lower, and music very low) so I legit didn’t notice the lack of music for 22 hours of actual play time (out of the about 100 I put into it). But I didn’t change the sound settings at all for it, it was perfect.
Fuckin great game.