Listening habits exceed standards for occupational noise exposure.

About half of Dutch adolescents exceed safety standards for occupational noise exposure when listening to music. About one third of the respondents exceeded safety standards solely as a result of listening to MP3 players. Hearing symptoms that occurred after using a MP3 player or going to a discotheque were associated with exposure to high-volume music. 

Hearing-related symptoms 

These were the results of a survey of 1,512 Dutch adolescents in secondary school, between the ages of 12 and 19, who completed questionnaires about their music-listening behaviour and whether they experienced hearing-related symptoms after listening to music at a high volume. Their self-reported data was used in conjunction with published average sound levels of music players, discotheques and pop concerts to estimate their noise exposure.

The results of the survey were published in American Journal of Public Health, 2010; 100 (6), p. 1095 - 1100.

Source: Audiology Infos (Norden), issue 7, 2011