Wherever we look nowadays, we see people wearing headphones or earbuds. They are becoming increasingly popular with the younger generation, for work and for leisure. However, a new report from the BBC suggests noise-cancelling earphones could lead to hearing loss. The BBC interviewed doctors and audiologists (hearing specialists) at audiology departments in five UK hospitals. The doctors told reporters they are seeing many young people who are finding it more and more difficult to process sounds. The young patients say they can hear sounds, but they're often not sure where the sounds are coming from. The doctors say noise-cancelling earphones could be the problem.

The BBC spoke to Dr Renee Almeida, an audiologist at London's Imperial College. She said there was an increase in the number of young people complaining about poor hearing. She said people need to hear many kinds of sounds. One important listening skill is to focus on and decide which sounds are helpful. Our ears must filter out sounds we don't think are important. Dr Almeida said: "There is a difference between hearing and listening. We can see that listening skills are suffering." Another audiologist suggested that headphones can lead to bad listening habits. She said we can "forget" to hear important sounds, like cars beeping. Headphones may even cause problems in hearing spoken words.