Why some earphones can make you sick, explains Vestibular audiologist Jessica Vitkovic
Noise cancellation technology does a lot more than reduce nearby sounds, and in some cases can leave people feeling physically ill. An expert explains why.
Noise cancellation earphones and buds are making some people sick.
The technology, which is often marketed as a way to shut off distractions and turn off the sounds of the world around you, can have quite an unsettling effect on some people, causing them to sway in the air, to feel nauseous or even disoriented.
The issue, which an expert says affects a small number of Australians, is linked to a balance organ in the ear and the use of sound cues for orientation.
“For people who utilise hearing cues in order to orient themselves, when they put on noise cancellation earphones, they remove all of those cues and can end up feeling a little bit disorientated in that environment,” said vestibular audiologist Jessica Vitkovic.
Ms Vitkovic is a board member at Audiology Australia and the director of Dizzyology, an audiology practice which specialises in balance.
Noise cancellation technology in earphones and buds, which Ms Vitkovic said is similar to that seen in hearing aids, is largely unregulated, which is a starkly different compared to the volume earphones can reach.
And in some cases, users have no option to cancel the noise reduction settings. One such example is in Google’s Pixel Buds Pro.
Google mobile phone users are given full control over the buds and are able to turn on or off noise cancellation technology, but iPhone users have zero control and can only use the noise cancellation mode while using the buds.
Ms Vitkovic explains there are four main senses the body uses to balance itself; which are vision, proprioception or kinaesthesia, the vestibular function or the balance organ function and hearing.
“The weighting of any of those systems changes when you change your environment. So if you are in the dark, you’re going to have to rely a lot more on your proprioception, your vestibular system and your hearing to locate yourself rather than your vision,” she said.
Some people rely on sound more than others for balance, especially when other senses may be damaged.
“Hearing gives us some location ability and what I would call a hearing map of where we are in a space. And that contributes to our sense of where we are in that room and how we move,” Ms Vitkovic said.
The loss of hearing has been found to make the average person lose their ability to posturise themselves. In other words, use sound cues to centre themselves and stop themselves from rocking back and forth.
A study published in the journal of Audiology & Neutrology in 2016 found that sound played a central role in stopping people from swaying.
“Although it wasn’t a huge amount of sway, and you couldn’t visibly see them rocking back and forth, we found when you place people in a place where there’s no sound, they do sway a little bit more,” said Ms Vitkovic, who was involved in the joint University of Melbourne and Australian Catholic University.
Other tech features on earbuds such as transparency modes which use microphones to let loud sounds through for safety can also confuse the body.
Ms Vitkovic said those artificial sounds can cause confusion depending on where the microphone is on the bud. “Particularly if there are delays, that can cause a lot of confusion. It’s a problem we see in hearing aids too,” she said.
Other sound-related reasons which could be causing nausea in certain people relate to the stimulation of loud sounds.
“In our ears, not only do we have the hearing organ but the balance organ. We know that the balance organs can react or respond to loud, low pitch bass sounds,” she said.
“The vibration of low pitch vibrations can mechanically stimulate the balance component of your inner ear, which would be saying to your body that you’re moving when you’re not. If you’re listening to loud rock music with a heavy base, that could be stimulating your balance organs even when you’re still, which would technically tell your brain that you’re moving or tilting, meanwhile your vision would be telling you that you’re still. That conflict can cause nausea.”
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