Video: The Inconvenient Truth About Wearing Earbuds

Are you wearing earbuds to listen to music or a podcast or to simply drown out distractions? Stop what you're doing, right now. Earbuds, while popular in open offices as productivity boosters, can permanently damage your ears.

The extremely focused sounds that come out of earbuds create aggressive waves that hit the tiny hairs that turn sound waves into signals for your brain, damaging them over time.

Researchers at Harvard Medical School discovered that it doesn't matter if the volume is turned low; it's still damaging to those precious ear parts.

Commuters and open office plan dwellers don't have to rough it, however. Instead, just switch to headphones that rest outside of the ear and let you tune out the world just the same.

To learn more about the harmful effects of earbuds, check out the video below, from CNET: 

(Image via rzoze19/ Shutterstock.com)