ABSTRACT

Earphones can be referred as a pair of small loudspeakers, or less commonly a single speaker, held close to a user's ears and connected to a signal source such as an audio amplifier, radio, CD player or portable media player.The in-ear versions are known as earphones or earbuds.A study was carried out pertaining the prolonged use of earphones among first year Chemical Engineering students in Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS. The objective of this study is to investigate the relationship of prolonged use of earphones with the danger it could lead to our hearing stytem commonly the ear. Questionnaire was given to the respondents to gather data. The questionnaire consisted of 4 sections which are background information, usage of earphones, factors that influence and the effects. The results of this study showed that prolonged use of earphones have caused many hearing problem to the users. Besides that, the study showed that male students are more prone to have damage to their ear as most of the respondents are male. This is most probably male students love to spend more on their times to listen to the music rather than female students. All the data gathered was analyzed by tabulating and transformed into graphs. Some recommendations has been made to improve this study such as by increasing the number of respondents and lengthen the duration of time to complete this study. Based on the finding of the study, it is concluded prolongred use of earphones have increase and brings a lot of damage to the hearing system whereby the more they use the earphones, the greater the chances of them suffer from hearing problem.

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CONTENT
NUMBER 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ASPECTS Abstract Chapter 1:Introduction Chapter 2:Literature Review Chapter 3:Methodology Chapter 4:Analysis of Result Chapter 5: Discussion Chapter 6: Conclusion Reference Appendix PAGE 1 3 6 9 12 22 27 28 29

CHAPTER 1
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1.0 Introduction

Music has become part of our everyday life. Most people love music according to their favourite genre or types of music. In todays world technology and globalisation, many improvisations and innovations have been made especially in terms of technology around us. Thus for music lovers, the electronic devices called earphones could have become a significant things or object in their everyday life. We might be able to notice some people around us wearing earphones and listening to the music everywhere we go. Earphones is actually a pair of small loudspeakers. It is commonly known as a single speaker which is held to a user's ears. It is connected via many sources such as audio amplifier, radio, CD player, mp3 or portable media player. They are also known as stereophones,headsets or headphones. The in-ear versions are commonly known as earphones or earbuds. Meanwhile in terms of telecommunication, the term headset is used to describe a combination of headphone and microphone used for two-way communication, for example with a telephone or mobilehones. People often call it as handsfree when it is connected to the mobilephones.

1.1 Background of Problem As we can see, wearing earphones is more effective in terms of campatibility or portabality dua to its small size, light-weight and easily handled by the users. However, a problem might arise if some safety precautions are not being made into practice. For music lovers especially, some ear or hearing problem might occur due to the prolonged or frequent use of earphones especially up to 2 hours. As the result, some hearing damage such as eardrum injuries may occur and this will cause the availability for human ear to hear sound to decrease. In addition, most people that are wearing headphones while listening to the music love to switch to a higher volume which is exceeding the safety volume level or capable of producing more than 100dBA (the threshold of hearing damage during extended listening) and not following the safety measures. Therefore wearing
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earphones at a sufficiently high volume level may cause temporary or permanent hearing impairment or deafness. 1.2 Statement of Problem There is a growing interest listening to the music via the media player such as mp3,i-pod,Cd player and otyher electronic gadgets. Thus, through this portable media player, listening to the music is always done with the help of a pair of small loudspeakers namely earphones. Through this, some of the problem have aroused regarding the prolonged use of earphones. As we can see there are many effects of wearing earphones to our ear. Prolonged use of earphones have caused many damage to the hearing system. As the concequence, many earphones users suffered from ear diseases. Most probably some of them them are not aware of the danger it could lead wile others may not follow the safety precautions. 1.3 Significance of Research This research is conducted to create or develope awareness among the users of earphones. The research will focus on the harmful or bad effects of prolonged use of earphones in our everyday life. Thus, through this research some disvantages of wearing earphones/headphones will be further discussed and exposed to the e users regarding the damage it could lead to the especially in terms of hearing mechanism. It is important to know the safety precautions effects of wearing this kind of device in order to avoid or minimize the risks or ear damage to the users. Furthermore, many people are not aware of this kind of problem as they might think that it wearing earphones has no effect to our hearing at all. Therefore, through this research, some of the wrong perceptions of the users will be amend by providing or showing them some evidence from the research. 1.4 Research Questions/ Hypothesis This research is aimed at awswering these research questions:
a) To what extent is wearing earphones/headphones harmful to the users? b) Is there any relationship between hearing or ear problem and the

prolonged wear of earphones?

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c) Is

there any solutions or other alternative to reduce the effects of

wearing earphones? 1.5 Summary In chapter one, some of the general introduction and background problem of wearing earphones has been discussed. Besides that the significance of this research has been stated together with problem statement and research questions.

CHAPTER 2 2.0 Literature Review

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Earphones: A Pair of Small Loudspeakers Could Lead to Serious Hearing Problem Music has become part of our everyday life. With todays technology, many new inventions and music devices has been made especially in music industry. For music lovers especially, such devices is called earphones which are connected via the media player such as mp3, i-pod or even portable music player. Earphone is a pair of small loud speaker which amplify the sound produced and is inserted in the users ear. Thus in the following paragraph,the effects of prolonged use of earphones on hearing while listening to the music will be further discussed. According to Jelliman (2007) in a recent study, more than 40% of people using Personal Audio Devices (PADs) were found to have daily noise exposures high enough to cause Noise-Induced Hearingloss (NIHL). Listening to loud music could cause permanent metaboliccochlear damage as a result of extreme exposure to sound levels between 90 dB and 140 dB. The study was approved by Research Committee of the Division of Speech-Language and Hearing Therapy, Stellenbosch University an it is conducted by delivering 27 item web-based questionnaire to the university students. Jalliman also suggest that the type of earphone used may contribute different damage to the ear. He claims that the earbud earphones, which rest insidethe ear deals more damage to the ear rather than over- the-ear headphones. Moreover the results shows that some students (about 33%) did not aware between increased listening time and loudness and potential which will lead to hearing damage while 8 percent of students were aware of the potential maximum loudness of PADs. However, most students (65%)showed little or no concern on the effect of using earphones. Besides that, in a study conducted among the students who use Personal Listening Devices (PLD) of Wuhan University, China, the results showed that the hearing loss occurred in 14.1% (34 of 240) for a long-term use of PLDs devices whereby the devices is connected to the users ear by a pair of earphones. The study was conducted by using a special devices called extended high-frequency audiometry to evaluate the risk of damage of PLDs to hearing. William ( 2006) states that the maximum available sound pressure levels from a stereo earphones can produce sound levels in excess of 100 dBA which is much higher than the preferred
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volume setting of most users. In addition, exposure to high sound intensity during leisure activities will lead to permanent hearing damage among young people. The most common explanation for hearing lost due to prolonged use of earphones is that the users was unaware of the danger that awaits them. Listening to music regularly at a loud volume will lead to hearing problem known as Tinnitus. (Figueiredo, Patrcia ,Pereira;2011 et al.,) commend that Noise Induced Hearing Loss
(NIHL) due to high sound pressure levels are one of the main causes of Tinnitus problem.

The

research wa conducted to hundred subjects aged from 15 to 30 years including students, staff and teachers in secondary schools on july 2009 mp3 player users and 46 were not. Most of them are regular mp3 users. The study found that, Tinnitus is more likely to occur in teenagers and young adults that regularly listen to music in personal stereo devices such as mp3. Surprisingly , there are about 25.1 percent mp3 users suffer from Tinnitus. However only 8.9 percent people suffer from this problem as they are not a regular mp3 users. This clearly shows that people who often wearing earphones while listening to the music through mp3 has a greater chance of being infected. On the other hand, Zogby International conducted a survey about the use of Personal Electronic Devices and Head Phones among high school students and adults. 301 interviews was conducted through telephone and 30 questions were asked each. The researchers pick the sample randomly from a purchased list of adults and high school students. These samples are sorted by grade, race,and gender. From these surveys, 62% of high school students use a Walkman or portable CD player while only 36% of adults tend to use it. The percentage of person using an Apple iPod is also conquered by high school students which is 36% of high school students using it while only 11% of adults using Apple iPod.Last but not least,a bunch of 25% high school students use other brand of MP3 while only 11% of adults exercising it. According to the research, high school students surveyed are more prone to have experience the symptoms of hearing problem. The symptoms are turning up the volume of television, saying what or huh during normal conversation and tinnitus or ringing in the ears . In addition, 17% high school students compare to 12% adults experience ringing in the ears or as we called it Tinnitus.
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The Department of Audiology from Northwestern University, Chicago have conducted research on the clinical use of an earphone . They conducted two different test to some random volunteers. The first research was done towards 25 random volunteers in 2 separates places. First, they use ER-3A earphone and then it was changed to TDH-50P earphone. All the threshold from both earphone were measured and there was no correction factor were used in this research. Meanwhile, the second research is about the relative effectiveness of noise attenuation for headphones and earphones. Later a loud broadband masking noise were brought in and the threshold were measured again. The results shows that at maximum frequency, the masker level is lower and thus the effective level is also decreased. This is all due to the threshold curve that they obtained from the graph from this experiment. This research also shows that the attenuation effects are increasing with increasing frequency and will be lower if the frequency is lower too. Exitingly,It shows that the insertion of earphone reduce the effects of noise on auditory system nut will eventually dampens the eardrum. In conclusion,there have an increase in the number of people wearing the earphones especially when listening to the music through the portable music players throughout the day. However inappropriate use of earphones has many disadvantages. The prolonged use of earphones could lead to serious health problem concerning your ear. Thus, based on the research many bad efects of wearing earphones comes from incorrect attitude of users especially neglecting the safety precaution that needen to be taken care of in order to protect the ear from any damage.

CHAPTER 3

3.0 Methadology 3.1 Introduction

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This chapter will discuss about methodology, in which can be described as a documented process for management of projects that contains procedures, definitions and explanations of techniques used to collect, store, analyze and present information as part of a research process in a given discipline. 3.2 Overview of the experiment This study purpose is to investigate the harmful effect of prolonged use of earphones among some of UTP students. Many years before this, there has been a growing in listening to the music among UTP students. In this study the focus is about electronic devices called earphones which is a pair of loudspeakers connected to the media player such as mp3 or i-pod regarding the concequences it could lead to the users while listening to the music. Therefore, we will conduct a study regarding this phenomenon in UTP. 3.3 Population The respondents of this research were 80 undergraduate student volunteers. The samplings of this survey are currently some of the first year chemical engineering students. The participants have varying GPA to make sure that results are valid for every level of performances so that the pattern can be traced effectively. 3.4 Location/ Site The questionnaire will be distributed randomly at V5 Caf in UTP where most of undergraduate students spend their time overthere. Besides that the questionnaire will be distributed to some of the volunteers students in the lecture halls before lecture started and will be collected back after lecture.

3.5 Limitation The limitation that we will face is some of the respondents did not answer the questionnaire properly. Besides that, the time for the respondents to understand the question thoroughly is constrained as questionnaire will be given during short time bound. Rather than that, some students didnt justify their answer specifically and this answer could be to general.
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3.6 Sampling and Sampling Procedures The questionnaire will be given to respondents on one to one basis and random sampling will be implemented in the process of gathering the data. A sample of questionnaire will be attached in Appendix I. The respondents will be asked first whether they love to wear earphones especially while listening to the music. This is done in order to ensure the questionnaire will be answered properly and the data gathered will meet the expectations. 3.7 Instrumentations A number of 80 students will be randomly picked to answer the questions. The survey will be conducted at V5 Caf located at Village 5 as most undergraduate students ranging from second year to final year live at V5. However, only 40 students will be requested to answer the form. Hence, the questionnaire will be fairly distributed to them randomly. Besides that, another 40 students or respondents will be chosen to answer the questionnaire at leture hall most probably at pocket D. Before the lecture session begins, the questionnaire will be sorted to differentiate male and female participants. After that, the numbers of each gender will be calculated and recorded for further analysis. All the participants will be given the questionnaire at the same time and at the same venue. Hence, the factors that might affect their judgments can be omitted because the volunteers were monitored during the process of answering the questionnaire. The questionnaires will be randomly distributed among undergraduate students without any selective of races or academic achievements.

3.8 Data Collection Procedures Since the questionnaire will be distributed at V5 Caf and at the lecture halls, there are two different ways of collecting the data. For questionnaire that were distributed among undergraduate students at V5 caf , the question will be distributed to 30 volunteers whenever they have free time. Then, they will be given 30 minutes to answer the question and are not allowed to leave until they finished. After 30
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minutes, the questions will be collected. Meanwhile at lecture halls, the questionnaire will be distributed before the lecture starts. After lecture has finished, the questionnaire will be collected before they leave the lecture halls. 3.9 Data Analysis Procedures The variables or factors that will be take into account for this study are gender and which type of music are more popular or more dominant in this field. Besides that, the data collected will be analysed and tabulated in table. Some of the statistics will be tabulated in pie charts or graph. 3.10 Materials The only material used in this research is the questionnaires. There are three sections in the questionnaires. Section A is about the demography. It is subjected to gather data about the respondents background information such as age, gender, semester of study. Besides, in Section B it is regarding on the usage earphones such as how many hours they spent on listening to the music and types of music they prefer to listen according to the gender. Next, the factors that influence the users to use earphones will be discussed in section C. Finally, the effects of wearing earphones will be discussed in section D. 3.11 Conclusion In conclusion, the steps that will be taken are necessary in collecting the data. All the data will be evaluated. The next chapter will discuss about analysis of result.

CHAPTER 4 4.0 Analysis of results

4.1 Introduction This chapter will discussed about analysis of results. The data gathered from the questionnaire will be analysed thouroughly and described in this chapter.The study was carried out among 80 respondents of first year until final year undergraduate
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students. From the data gathered, it showed that 50 males and 30 females took part in the survey and answered the questionnaires given. Since the questionnaires were distributed randomly, it was found that majority of the respondents comes from first year and second year students while a few students comes from third and final year students. All the data were tabulated in Appendix II. 4.2 Interpretation of Results Section A: Background Information Question 1 and 2: Gender and Semester of study.

Graph 1: Number of respondents based on gender & semester of study

From the graph above, it showed that from 70 male and 10 female respondents, about 52.5% of them were male students from first semester and 35% were from second semester. It also showed that 7.5% and 5% were female students from first semester and second semester respectively.

Question 3 : Number of courses registered for this semester.

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Graph 2: Percentage versus number of courses taken

Based on the graph, the highest percentage of number of courses taken is Five with 48.75% followed by Six with 20%, Three with 18.75% and Seven with 8.75%. the lowest percentage of number of courses taken is Four with 3.75%. Question 4: Do you wear earphones when listening to the music?

Graph 3: Percentage versus number of respondents who use earphones while listening to music

Question 4 is the most vital part because it gave the whole picture of this questionnaire. It was about whether the respondents use earphones or not. The data gathered shown that 60out of 80 respondents which equivalent to 75% gave positive answer while 25% respondents did not use earphones..

Question 5: Do you always use earphones while listening to the music?

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Chart 1: A pie chart showing percentage versus regularity of students using earphones

This question is mainly about the regularity of students using earphones when listening to the music. Based on the research, surprisingly, most respondents claims that they use earphones most of the time. This group probably comes from music lovers. Next, about 21% of the respondents stated that they use earphones when needed only and depends on their needs. Meanwhile 18% of them seldom use earphones probably because they do not listen to music frequently. However, only 11% of the students never use earphones.

Section B: Usage of earphones while listening to music This section is mainly about how many often do the respondent listen to the music to the music using earphones to and how many hours do they spent on listening to the music through earphones as well as types of music preffered by the respondents. Question 1: When do you always listening to the music?
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Graph 4: Percentage versus frequency of respondents using earphones

From the graph above, it was obviously shown that there was not much different between daily and weekend. About 51% respondents play use earphones daily while the rest, 49% respondents only using earphones while listening to the music on weekend
Question 2: On an average, how much time do you spend listening to music?

Graph 5: Percentage versus time spend using earphones for listening to music

The graph clearly showed that most of the respondents use earphones in the range of 1 to 2 hours and 2 to 3 hours only. About 35.3% of the respondents wear earphones approximately 1 to 2 hours on an average while the least, 13.7% of respondents using earphones for 3 to 4 hours in order to listhen to the music via mp3, i-pod, and other media players. Question 3: Usually, at what time do you always listening to music via earphones?
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Graph 6: Percentage versus time spent for listening to music

Based on the graph, the highest percentage is seen through answer option of during midnight with 58.8% while the least is during the lecture which is 5.9%. For the rest, about 7.8% of the respondents hear music through media player early in the morning while 5.9% were during the lecture. Question 4: What type of music do you often heard

4%

T of Music ype
11%

Rock Pop

50% 35%

Chart 2: A pie chart showing percentage versus type of music listened by respondents

The pie charts above discussed about the type or classes of music preffered by the respondents. From the charts, most students love to hear Rock/ Heavy metal music which contributes more damage to the hearing because of the music itself.This accounts for about 50% or half of them. Next, about 35% of respondents love to hear
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pop music which is slightly less heavier than Rock music. On the other hand, a few students (11%) prefer to choose classical music as they favourite genre due to its softness and calmness of the music. Meanwhile only 4% of the respondents choose others genre. Section C: Factors that influence you to use earphones while listening to music In this section, respondents were allowed to answer more than one answer. Question 1: What influence you to use earphones while listening to the music?
F actorstha influence t
10% m satisfaction ore 16% 25% 49% avoid outside noise not disturning people around others

Chart 3: Pie chart showing the percentage versus on what influence the respondents to use earphones while listening to the music

From the graph above, most of the respondents wear earphones because it gives more satisfaction when listening to the music. The percentage accounts for about Next, about 25% of the respondents claims that they want to avoid the surrounding noise in order to fully enjoy the music.besides that only 16% of the students wear earphones in order to not disturbing the people The least percentage which is 16 % covered by the others.

Question 2: Why do you listen to the music?

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Chart 4: Percentage versus factors for listening to music

This question is mainly about the reasons why the respondents listen to the music There are a few answer options. About 24% of the respondents stated that one of the reasons is to reduce stress/pressure of studying. However, 59% of them stated that it is because of their interest or hobby to listen to song and music. The result also reported that 12% of them listen to the music because they feel comfortable when enjoying the music while 19.6% of the respondents caused by other factors.

Section D: Effects of wearing earphone Question 1: Can you pay attention in the lecture while using earphone to listen to your song?

Graph 7: Percentage of the respondents who can pay attention in the lecture or not.

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From the graph above, 80.4% of the respondents can pay attention in the lecture while 19.6% of the respondents cannot. Question 2: Do you come late to the lecture?

Graph 8: Percentage of the respondents who come late to the lecture or not.

The graph showed that 64.7% of the respondents come late to the lecture while 35.3% of them do not. Question 3: Do you suffer from any of those hearing problem?

Chart 5: Percentage versus Hearing problem

This question is mainly asking about whether the respondents did suffer from any of the hearing problem as the effects of prolonged use of earphones. As can be seen from the pie chart above, the highest percentage came from the difficulty to detect faint soud or low frequency sound which is 35%. It is followed by 30% of the
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respondents who lose hearing ability, 22% with sickness in the inner ear , 12% with hearing mixing sound and only 1% others. Question 4: Do you aware of the danger it could lead for prolonged use or earphones?

Graph 9: Percentage regarding awareness of students about effects of using earphones

Based on the Graph above, majority of the respondents are not aware of the harmful effect it could lead to our hearing system on prolonged use of earphones. The percentage accounts for about 51%. Meanwhile, only 49% are aware of the danger of using earphones frequently. 4.3 Conclusion In conclusion, all the data gathered from the questionnaire has been analysed in this chapter. The next chapter will cover about discussion.

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CHAPTER 5 5.0 Discussion

In this chapter, the discussion will be based on the result analysis from the previous chapter. The analysis are categorized into 4 categories. They are background information,usage of wearing earphones, factors that influence to use earphones and effects of prolonged use of earphones. Section A : Background infomation The respondents were first year Chemical Engineering students. From the analysis of the graph, this study showed that from 80 respondents, 70 were male students and only 10 were females students. The result shown probably due to the factor that male students are more prone to hear music using the earphones.

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From the observation that has been made, the percentage of students who took 5 subjects were the highest with 48.75%. There are 20% of respondent who took 6 subjects and about 8.75% of respondents took 7 subjects this semester. Next, from 80 respondents, there were about 51 respondent or 63.8% of the respondents using the headphones.Most of the respondents use headphones so that they can hear music without disturbing their roommates to study or sleep. Furthermore the respondents also use headphones so that they can hear music and focus on study without being attracted to other things. Meanwhile about 36.2% of the respondents prefer not to use headphones while watching movies or listening to music. Majority of the respondents or about 50% of them prefer to use headphones whenever they were listening to music. This is because,they do not want to disturb their roommates and for self-pleasure while listening to music. 21% of respondent use it only when needed .The terms when needed means they only use the headphones if their roommates were either sleeping , performing prayers or studying while 18% of them seldom using headphones. There were only 11% of the respondents who did not use earphone at all.

Section B: Usage of earphones while listening to music From the graph analysis above, 51% of the respondents states that they use headphone on every single day. It was probably because they were prefer to hear music near to their ear to give them more fun and exciting way to listen to the music. It was also probably they wanted to make sure that the music they were listening to did not disturbs their neighbor. Meanwhile, the balance of the respondents which is 49% states that they only use the earphone during the weekends only. Maybe this is because they do not want to disturbs their neighboring friends rest time with their loud music. In addition, for the average about 35.3% of the respondents listened music for 1 to 2 hours. From the respondents reactions, the respondents were aware that
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using earphone for long times can cause permanent damage to their hearing system. Only 33.3% used earphone for 2 to 3 hours, 13.7% use earphonefor 3 to 4 hours and 17.7% used earphone for more than 4 hours. It shows that only small amounts of the respondents who are not aware on how long time usage of earphone can damage the hearing. The statistic shows that the favorite time for the respondents to listen to the music using earphone is at midnight with 58.8 of them agreed with that . This is because, midnight is time for people to rest and sleep. Loud music can disturb them, thus earphone is used so that it would not disturbs other peoples resting. 27.5 of the respondents prefer to use earphone during the evening. Meanwhile 7.8% respondent prefer to use earphone during morning so that they will not disturbs other peoples sleep. Shockingly, there are small percentage of respondents ,which is 5.9% would love to listen the music using earphone during the lecture hour due to either the lectures is boring or they were lazy to listen to the lectures. Majority of the respondents or 50% of them prefer to hear rock music using the earphone. This is because it is more exciting to hear rock music using a earphone. Besides that, 35% of respondents states that they prefer to listen to pop music using earphone. This is probably because pop song is easier and fun to sing along with,thats why the usage of earphone to listen to pop music can creates happiness to the listener. Meanwhile,there are only about 11% of the respondents listen to classical song using an earphone. Classical song is very soft,thus it is very suitable to hear this kind of music using earphone. Besides that,there is only 4% of the respondent use earphone to listen to other type of song such as jazz, bleus or rap song. Section C: Factors that influence you to use earphones while listening to music According to the analysis of pie chart 3 there are 49% of the respondents claims that using earphones gives them more satisfaction while listening to the music. This shows that the respondents really loves to use earphones as a device for hearing music as they found that through this, they have more feeling towards the music and at the same time, they can enjoy the music more.Therefore, respondents
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there are more tendency for the respondents to use earphones and this will increase the risk of damage to their ear. The next factor is about avoiding the outside sound or noise which counts for about 25% of the respondents. Thus, the respondents will tend to use earphones so that they can listen smoothly and clearly to the music when the surrounding is noisy. This might help them to enjoy the music without being distracted by surrounding sound. Moreover there are 16% of the respondents suggest that using earphones will not disturb the people around them while listening to music. This might be due to the respect to other people around them as the people around them will not get distracted.Lastly about 10% of the respondents thinks that there are another factors of people using earphones to listen to music. Meanwhile the analysis of pie chart 4 focused on the reasons for the users to listen to the music using earphones. More than half of the respondents which are about 29% altogether commend that it is their hobby to listen to the music. This might be due to a plenty of freetime that they have. Therefore they probably spend their time listening to mp3 player for not getting bored. Furthermore, it has become they practice and perhaps a hobby.Next, 24% of the respondents suggest that listening to the music while wearing earphones could reduces the pressure or stress that they encountered. This might be due to the reason that listening to the music could make them feel relax or calm after doing all their assignments, revision and project which could make them stress of doing many works. Another 12% of the respondents states that listening to the music with the aid of earphones instead of using loudspeakers provides more comfort to them. The rational can be seen because maybe some of the students are music lovers and most probably using earphones makes them feel better when enjoying the music. Therefore, respondents tend to listen to the music to make them feel comfortable.Finally, there are only 5% of the respondets provide other factor such as to get rid of headache and to help them fall asleep. Section D: Effects of wearing earphone From the graph that have been analysed, 80.4% of the respondents still can pay attention during the lecture and only 19.6% cannot pay attention. This result
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showed that even though they bring their music player such as mp3 or i-pod during the lecture, yet they still can prioritize the important things and pay attention in the lecture. Besides, about 64.7% of the samplings came late to the lecture and the rest 35.3% did not come late to the lecture. The respondents also suffered from some health problems as the effects of prolonged use of earphones. About 35% of them have reduce their ability to hear sound. This might be due to the excessive amount of time listening to the music via the earphones. 30% of the respondents claims that they had difficulties in detecting faint sound or low frequency sounds. This might be sue to the damage in their eardrum and lacking of fluids that nourishes their ear as a result of a high frequency sound at higher volume. Meanwhile 22% of them experienced sick in their inner part of ear due to the dampening of eardrum. The eardrum might be ruptured more rapidly than the normal rate. Other than that, 12% of them claims that sometimes they cannot detect the actual sound and always heard mix sound. This might happen in a noisy surrounding where there are many sources of sound produced. As the concequence, they find it is hard to differentiate the sound which having different frequency and vibrations From the analysis of the graph, majority of the respondents are not aware of the danger it could lead due to prolonged use of earphones. There are about 51% of them. This is because they dont have enough exposure towards this issue and most probably they do not care about their health problem especially the hearing system. As a result, most of them will suffer from hearing problem.However there are 49% are actually aware of the danger of prolonged use of earphones to their ear. This group is also an earphones user but most probably they manage to take care of their ear by knowing the safety precautions when using earphones. Thus, they will have less hearing damage compared to the previous group.

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CHAPTER 6 6.0 Conclusion 6.1 Introduction As a whole this chapter will summarize on the whole chapter of this report. Based on the research that have been conducted there are several recommendations and suggestions have been made. The findings regarding our project will be summerize further regarding the prolonged use of earphones. Moreover, the objectives of this research has been met as they reflect the purpose of this research. 6.2 Significance of findings After the research was carried out, there are several findings came out. These findings are really important as they reflects and decscribe the level of awareness among the UTP students regarding the use of earphones in which the most significant finding is that most of the UTP students are not cautious
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about the risk or the danger about prolonged use of earphones their hearing system. Thus through our findings, hopefully some of the them especially the earphone users are well aware of this problem and reduce the use of earphones in their everyday life as well as practicing a healthy lifestyle. 6.3 Suggestion or recommendations for future research As the research was conducted within a small scope of respondents, thus the results that was obtainded might not be highly accurate and precise.Some of the misconceptions might occur as the findings might not explaining the greater picture of it. Therefore, it is recommended that the future research should increase the scope of the research and emphasize on every aspects that are related in order to give a better explanasions to come out with more significant findings and powerful conclusions. 6.4 Summary In conclusion prolonged use of earphones have cause several hearing damages to the users ear. From the data gathered, it can be deduced that wearing earphones frequently for a longer peroid of time will eventually damages our ear though the some of the users are actually aware of the hazard.

References
Tran, J. (2005). Paly students unaware of risks of earphone use. Retrieved 11 October 2005 , from http://www.4hearingloss.com/archives/2005/10/paly_students_u.html

Stephen (2007). Earbuds for Hearing Loss? Retrieved from 19 September 2007, from http://www.romow.com/tech-blog/earbuds-for-hearing-loss/

Fantel , H. (1983, July 24). SOUND; WARNING LIGHTS FLASH FOR EARPHONE USERS. New York Times. Retrieve from http://www.nytimes.com/1983/07/24/arts/sound-warning-lights-flash-for-earphoneusers.html?scp=1&sq=earphone%20effects&st=cse
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Admin# (2011 , July 14). Headphones and Hearing Loss. Healthy & Healthy. Retrieve from http://healthnhealthy.com/headphones-hearing-loss.html

Alan (2011). Cause of Earphone, Hearing Aid Fatigue Diagnosed. The Science Business. Retrieved 16 May 2011 from www.sciencebusiness.technewslit.com

APPENDIX Sample of questionnaire

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