A recent study by an EU appointed committee said that iPod and MP3 player users should turn the volume down on their players or risk losing their hearing, as one in ten people in the UK could be deaf from MP3 players.

Meglena Kuneva, the consumer affairs commissioner for the European Union, wants to get the European governments together with the music industry insiders to discuss the problem.

I am concerned that so many young people, in particular, who are frequent users of personal music players and mobile phones at high acoustic levels, may be unknowingly damaging their hearing irrevocably.

The scientific findings indicate a clear risk and we need to react rapidly. Most importantly we need to raise consumer awareness and put this information in the public domain.

We need also to look again at the controls in place, in the light of this scientific advice, to make sure they are fully effective and keep pace with new technology.

One piece of advice that the committee came up with was simply to lower the audio level of your players in order to save your hearing.

The problems of loud music through personal audio players isn’t a new one, but as sales of MP3 players increase the problem is becoming more widespread. There are currently somewhere between six and twelve million MP3 Players being used in the UK on a daily basis.