title: Listening to music with personal listening devices: monitoring the noise dose using a smartphone application.
abstract: To monitor listening habits to personal listening devices (PLDs) using a smartphone application and to compare actual listening habits to self-report data.
  
  
  
  Two stages: self-report listening habits questionnaire, and real-time monitoring of listening habits through a smartphone application.
  
  
  
  Overall 117 participants aged 18-34 years (mean 25.5 years) completed the questionnaire, and of them, 40 participants (mean age: 25.2 years) were monitored for listening habits during two weeks.
  
  
  
  Questionnaire main findings indicated that most of the participants reported listening for 4-7 days a week, for at least 30 min at high listening levels with volume control settings at 75-100%. Monitored data showed that actual listening days per week were 1.5-6.5 d, with mean continuous time of 1.56 h, and mean volume control setting of 7.39 (on a scale of 1-15). Eight participants (22%) were found to exceed the 100% noise dose at least once during the monitoring period. One participant (2.7%) exceeded the weekly 100% daily noise dose. Correlations between actual measurements and self-report data were low to moderate.
  
  
  
  Results confirmed the feasibility of monitoring listening habits by a smartphone application, and underscore the need for such a tool to enable safe listening behaviour.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Communication Disorders, Sackler Faculty of Medicine , Tel Aviv University , Tel Aviv , Israel and.|b Speech and Hearing Center, Chaim Sheba Medical Center , Ramat Gan , Israel.
authors.forename: Ricky
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kaplan-Neeman
authors.affiliation: a Department of Communication Disorders, Sackler Faculty of Medicine , Tel Aviv University , Tel Aviv , Israel and.|b Speech and Hearing Center, Chaim Sheba Medical Center , Ramat Gan , Israel.
authors.forename: Chava
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Muchnik
authors.affiliation: a Department of Communication Disorders, Sackler Faculty of Medicine , Tel Aviv University , Tel Aviv , Israel and.
authors.forename: Noam
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Amir
mesh_terms: D000162:Acoustics / Q000295:instrumentation*; D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001307:Auditory Perception; D005240:Feasibility Studies; D005260:Female; D006184:Habits; D015438:Health Behavior; D006317:Hearing Loss, Noise-Induced / Q000209:etiology / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology; D006801:Humans; D055539:MP3-Player; D008297:Male; D063731:Mobile Applications; D009146:Music; D009622:Noise / Q000009:adverse effects; D012307:Risk Factors; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; D000068997:Smartphone; D013018:Sound Spectrography; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013997:Time Factors; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Behavioural measures; hearing conservation; instrumentation; noise