I've said it before but no one ever listens (you definitly won't be able to listen later on in life!). Playing any game with headphones for extended periods of time is bad for your ears. What worries me the most about online gaming communities is the fact that lots of gamers champion the virtues of using headphones to get an aural advantage.
This can be dangerous with games like BF2 that produce an excessive amount of noise. What of all the pro gamers that practice religiously and use headphones? I feel sorry for them. Imo, there are no safe headphones and no safe volume. Your ears were not designed to process noise constantly. Your hearing will naturally degrade over time as you get older and unfortunately, using headphones will get you there quicker. Anyone remember back when Valve lowered the volume of footsteps in CS:S? I bet you can guess what gamers did to compensate!
Why am I even bitching about this? How would you like it if you had to have white noise blasting in your ear 24/7 for the rest of your life? I have tinnitus as a result of playing many many games of BF2, CS, and especially CS:S and music. I did not realize that something was wrong until I started to have trouble focusing on a particular conversation when many sounds (ie tv's, cars outside, etc) were present. By then it was already too late. Although I can still hear, it is nothing at all like what it used to be. Tinnitus causes difficulty sleeping because dead silence is replaced with constant ringing of the ears.
It is very unpleasant yet totally preventable. Please don't reply with "but i have <insert uber headphones here>, i'm just fine!". You are only fooling yourself into thinking it can't happen to you. My advice to anyone would be to buy a set of good surround sound speakers and stay the hell away from headphones unless absolutly necessary. Some people may or may not use them as excessively as I did, but the fact of the matter is that the damage occurs over time.
You are welcome to google for tinnitus, headphones, ipod etc to find more information. This is all truth.
To mods: This information is relevant to all gamers, BF2 including.
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