Hearing is defined as the capability to perceive sounds. The majority of people are born with the ability to hear and unfortunately, it’s something that’s usually taken for granted. There are many ways to damage or lessen your hearing capabilities. The maintenance of your hearing is very important because once your hearing fades or any hearing loss occurs the effects are irreversible. Sound is measured by decimals and anything over 85 decimals can cause harm to your ability to hear. To put decimals in perspective a normal conversation occurs at a tone of 40-60 while a music concert can reach to a high decimal of 140 and a jet plane a soaring 155. One contributing factor of hearing loss is the use of earbuds. Earbuds are small headphones that are meant to be worn inside the ear. They are able to reach up to 110 decimals which is 25 decimals over what can cause damage. On top of that wearing earbuds may increase the volume you have set by up to 9 decimals. During the last decade hearing loss has increased in the youth by 30%.In order to help prevent some damage from happening it is a good practice to get fitted headphones that go around your ears rather than inside them. Also a good tip is not to exceed an hour of constant listening and not to surpass 60 percent of the maximum volume. iPod’s and MP3 players have increased the chances of receiving hearing loss because most require headphones or earplugs in order to work. The volume settings can actually achieve up to 10 times the recommended amount for listeners. A study found that one in five teenagers in America have some amount of hearing loss due to listening to music for long extended periods of time. Noise induced hearing loss (NIHL) is when someone is exposed to really loud noise. NIHL can be a very sudden sound like a firework going off, a car crash or even an explosion. NIHL can also be a constant sound such as a construction area with heavy equipment being operated. Loud