Does anyone know if its safe to wear headphones to voice chat for extended periods of time (not listening to music) at a reasonable volume without damaging one's hearing?

I DONT THINK SO
sorry i had the caps on

Err, I used to do that for online FPS. I don't see the problem as long as you leave it at comfortable volume.

It's the high decibel high frequency noises that can really damage your hearing, and some headphones actually hurt your ears more since they are more bright sounding (trebly). The Sony V6 actually hurts my ears, I don't know why people like it, but it was a painful experience for me. I find many Sony headphones to have that bright characteristic which is why I avoid Sony (among other reasons). I prefer Sennheiser which have a warmer sound, or Beyer Dynamic.

I have minor tinnitus for most of my life that I could remember, not sure if it was a condition since I was young or listening to headphones at loud volume during bus rides during school, but now there is a permanent high pitch noise in the background.

Personally, what I do is always try to go lower with the volume. After I am used to a certain volume level, I drop the volume one more notch. Even when I can't hear it as well at first, I eventually can hear it okay.

Something I look for is the option to make the sound even out. That is, all the parts that are louder become quieter and the all the parts that are quieter become louder, sort of averaging out all the sounds. I know iTunes had a feature like that, in the preferences or maybe the "Info" panel for each song, but I'm not sure I've seen it anywhere else. I don't like that idea for music, but I think I would definitely use it for chats, and maybe even for movies. It'd be much easier to keep the volume level low if I don't have to detect quieter sounds.

Of course, being a loud environment ruins that. Gotta get over-the-ears headphones, ones that block out environmental noise so the volume can be kept low, I would think. Sense of hearing is so difficult to protect, it's not quite like closing my eyes to block out what I don't want to see.

Personally, I'd take breaks every once in a while so you don't get infections from sweat ears.

Having used various software for speaking to cronies in games over the years, I've never had any problem arise from doing so. Well, unless someone eats whilst talking, but feck them! ;p

Discord seems to be coming along great.

Headphones wise, make sure you've got a comfy set & don't have volume at stupidly loud levels & you should be fine.

The important thing about using voice chat when gaming is to adjust the relative volume levels of the game and the voice chat to a comfortable level. If the volume of the game is too low relative to the voice chat, you'll be tempted to turn up the volume of your headset to hear the game better, thus making the voice chat louder than it needs to be. Ironically, if the volume of the game is too high, so it drowns out some of what is being said over voice chat, you may do the same thing in order to hear the voice chat better. Basically, just make sure you adjust the in-game volume separately from the voice chat volume, rather than just turning your headset volume up and down.

If the volume is at a safe level then the only real problem I would potentially anticipate is increased heat capture in the ear leading to excessive earwax buildup. Worst case scenario is having to flush your ears occasionally (during a shower works well) with one of those ear flush bulbs, or a doctor's office visit for extreme buildup.

Other than that I can't see any hearing damage other than from excessive volume or blockage causing muffling or discomfort until flushed out.