For once, what your mom says may be right. Turns out, you should turn down your music. 

According to an article in the August issue of the American Journal of Medicine, one in five teens cannot hear the rustles or whispers. The number of teens with slight to severe hearing loss has jumped 33% since 1994/ 

Why? Like you gotta even ask...
- photo via Brass.com 

According to a recent New York Times article "many researchers attribute this widespread hearing loss to exposure to sound played loudly and regularly through headphones. (Earbuds, in particular, don’t cancel as much noise from outside as do headphones that rest on or around the ear, so earbud users typically listen at higher volume to drown out interference)."

Play your music at 80% and reduce the risk of permanent hearing loss. Or learn sign language. You choose.