If you’re like most teens, music is a huge part of your life. Whether you’re at home, surfing the web, or on your way to school, you usually have white, black, or pink cords draping from your ears.

Every day on our way to and from school, we always see people with headphones on. Whether or not these people are blasting their music or keeping it to themselves, many don’t realize the effect this may have on their hearing.

Wearing headphones might impact your hearing over time, especially if your music is at a very high volume. Many people, like junior Tamara Joseph, were shocked to hear this. “This makes me think about how loud I play my music,” said Tamara, “I’ll definitely be more cautious with my iPod after hearing this!”

Junior Deja Washington agrees, saying that her parents always tell her these things but that it hasn’t sunk in until now.

Studies show that hearing loss, especially amongst teens, is on the rise. This problem is greatly attributed to the way teens are listening to their iPods and MP3 players.

Junior Samyira Lewis listens to music every day on the way to and from school, “Sometimes I listen to it really loud,” she stated. Samyira has heard that loud music can affect her hearing but she isn’t going to stop listening to music.

Although iPods and MP3 players aren’t completely to blame for hearing loss, they’re partially responsible.

According to Time Magazine, the number of teenagers suffering from slight hearing loss has increased in the past decade.

An expert from the magazine says that listening to music through headphones poses an increased risk of permanent hearing loss with as little as five minutes of exposure to music, at full volume, per day.

Teenagers tend to play their music at much higher volumes and for much longer periods of time than other age groups. It’s become so commonplace that some don’t even realize what they are doing.

If you’re one of the millions of teens that do this, it’s not too late. Avoid hearing loss by using a quality pair of headphones and by playing your music at a lower volume. An even better solution is to use over-the-ear headphones while listening to music. If that’s too hard, you can slowly wean yourself off of high music volumes. Every day, lower your volume until you reach a healthy but enjoyable volume level. Also, you can create limits on how often you listen to music. These things aren’t too hard to do and will definitely pay off in the long run.

If it’s gotten to the point that you’re experiencing ringing in the ears or difficulty understanding speech in noisy places, you should definitely be concerned. The best thing for you to do in this situation is contact your doctor as soon as possible.

Can you hear me now? If so, take out those headphones and give your ears a break!