Loud Music Linked to Risky Behaviors

Just like your parents always feared, listening to loud music may actually be bad for you. A new study finds that teens and young adults who use ear buds to listen to music at the "risky" level of 89 dBA for at least an hour each day were nearly twice as likely as non-listeners to smoke pot. In addition, those who hang out at concerts or dance clubs are almost six times as likely to binge drink as those who stay home, the Los Angeles Times reports.

The risky behavior of listening to music at 89 dBA can also harm hearing, warns the study, published in the journal Pediatrics. And those who engaged in such listening on a digital music player, as well as concert-and club-goers, were also more likely to smoke cigarettes daily and to practice unsafe sex. (More music stories.)