There are plenty of workplace and other studies on loud sound/noise and the way it DOES harm your hearing .
http://www2.le.ac.uk/offices/press/press-releases/2012/august/earphones-potentially-as-dangerous-as-noise-from-jet-engines-according-to-new-university-of-leicester-study
However, there are no studies I can find dealing ONLY with headphones !
Back when the Sony Walkman was 'invented' the media was full of concerned doctors and general doh-gooders who warned of all kinds of ill-effects,
from complete deafness to increased road-deaths as a result .
However, in those +30 years, the percentage of adolescents with some kind of hearing-disorder has only increased from 3 to 5%
and in my country road-deaths have dropped from 1200 pr year to just over 200 !!
http://www.personal.psu.edu/afr3/blogs/siowfa12/2012/10/hearing-loss-from-headphones.html
(That doctor really cracks me up : The 60/60 rule .. 60% 'of maximum volume' . This is why medical doctors don't design amplifiers !)
Also, at least in my country, a whole new private industry, offering hearing-tests and hearing-aids to correct the faults they find, has sprung up .
That could easily explain the 2 percentage-point increase . These guys even sell hearing-aids for
Tinnitus !!
For comparison :
Quote:
An estimated 1 in 88 children in the U.S. is on the autism spectrum – a 78 percent increase in six years that is only partly explained by improved diagnosis.
http://www.autismspeaks.org/about-us/press-releases/dramatic-rise-autism-prevalence-parallels-research-explosion
I guess watching cartoons or playing videogames makes you violent and masturbating makes you go blind !!
The fact is, I believe, that most people simply can't stand listening loud enough, for long enough time, for it to be as bad as they would have you believe ..
I'm not saying you can't harm your hearing with to loud music, clearly you can,
but most of us in 'the walkman generation' still hear fine .. For our age that is
EDIT :
Comparing a jet-engine with music ??
Whatever, doctor-dude ....
EDIT 2 :
There is plenty evidence that 'organic solvents' harm your hearing :
http://ec.europa.eu/health/opinions/en/hearing-loss-personal-music-player-mp3/l-3/6-diagnosis-treatment.htm
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2078137/
I don't know about The States, but in my country studies 'suggest' that teenagers start to drink alcohol earlier ..
And drink more of it !