system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5 if you hear the volume at the same level, what's more harmful to your ears: in ear or over ear headphones?
gpt
If it's truly at the same level, it doesn't make a difference.

You ears can't directly tell if you're using in-ear or over-ear headphones. All they can feel is what actually hits your eardrums (not counting bone-conduction headphones). Harm is caused by too much energy going into your inner ear and damaging the very sensitive hairs inside. At equal volume, you've got equal energy going in and equal damage.

Typically you're not going to run in-ear and over-ear at the same volume though...over-ear does a \*much\* better job of blocking external sound, so you usually don't need the volume to be as high to enjoy the same fidelity. So, in practice, you usually have the effective volume lower on over-ears (and less energy from external sources), which should lead to lower hearing damage, but that's all because there's less energy going into your ears.