Your parents told you, your friends told you and now a new study seems to show it's true - you will damage your hearing if you keep that MP3 player music too loud!

It's kind of obvious if you think about it. The study by the National Acoustic Laboratory in Sydney Australia, found that about a quarter of the people questioned kept their iPods at volumes that could cause long-term hearing damage.

This is due to the size of the standard iPod earphones - those little white buds.

Unlike larger headphones that can block background noise, the popular pop-in-your ear types of earphones make it harder to hear the music without cranking up the sound.

Solution - get yourself a good pair of headphones and leave the standard iPod buds at home.