The RNID, the charity for the deaf and the hard of hearing has joined the struggle to inform youngsters of the dangers of listening to their MP3 players too loudly.

The message is simple, if you play your music too loudly for a sustained period using your headphones you run a very real risk of damaging your hearing permanently, causing premature deafness.

The RNID says that two thirds of all youngsters who use MP3 players and iPods are unaware of the risk of having the volume too high on their players, and are risking their hearing.

There are currently 8 million MP3 players sold every year in the UK, which means that’s a lot of people potentially damaging their hearing.

New research from the RNID discovered that a staggering 72 out of 110 people who regularly use MP3 players had their volume above 85 decibels.

According to the World Health Organisation, just an hour’s listening to headphones at that level can cause damage to hearing, but alarmingly just 15 minutes listening to music at 105 decibels will cause damage.

In short, 6 out of 10 MP3 player users didn’t know that listening to their music at high volumes can damage their hearing.
Clearly awareness of the problem is an issue.