A leading charity in Northern Ireland has advised people for not playing iPods too loud. It was found that a large number of youngsters who play iPods at a greater pitch had experienced early hearing loss.

Another institution, The Royal National Institute for the Deaf NI analyzed that, listening music at high volumes on Mp3 players for long hours is similar to listening to a power drill at close range.

The charity is concerned for the youth of Northern Ireland and is making its hard attempts to educate the young people regarding this problem. As a part of Noise Action week, charity had decided to visit the schools to examine the sound setups of music players used by the pupils.

Investigators have established that around 58% of people under age group of 16 to 30 years are unaware of the risk involved with these devices.

It is predictable that sale of MP3 in EU alone lies between 124million and 165 million.

Experts from the EU's scientific committee have recommended, placing the volume setting to 85 decibels as a default maximum volume because small earphones exaggerate the volumes inside the ear canals and it can reach around 120 decibels.

The findings of the study revealed by RDNI states that 66% of people listen to music at their iPods keeping their volume above the default maximum volume setting, i. e. 85 db.

Across the world, the most happening cause of permanent hear loss is exposure to loud music, as listed by the World Health Organization.

RNDI NI spokeswomen Claire Lavery said that, a sizeable amount of people don't realize that the music they love can harm their ears. People do not like to hear loud noises coming from external sources but forget to pitch down the volume of their own iPods resulting in hear loss.

This survey calls for more researches to be performed in order to know the harmful effects of iPods and MP3 players on young people's hearing.

Noise Action Week flows from April 26-30.