It's not so much that portable music players damage hearing. For mainstream pop culture and the mentioned age group it seems to be important to not only listen to crap music, but to make sure people around you know what crap music you listen to, so the right people can think you're cool. Be it hoons crusing through the city with doof doof audible from down the street, or that fat white guy on the bus listening to rap 'music' on his ipod, that makes you cringe from 5 seats away. I would agree that concerts and nightclubs tend to have a volume significantly higher than necessary. Most venues now sell ear plugs (at inflated prices, much like water and soft drinks etc), however these tend to deaden the experience, and simply turning the volume down 20% would be a much more beneficial solution for everyone. Then again, perhaps these venues are catering to the crowd who are already partially deaf from years of too loud music. If it's too loud, you're not too old, you're too young!