A new study, published in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association, shows that hearing loss in American teenagers is on the rise.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conducted the study and found that since 1994, there has been a 31 percent rise in hearing loss, especially in teenage boys.

The majority of hearing loss was not very significant, but the cases of mild or worse hearing loss increased 77 percent.

"Our hope is we can encourage people to be careful," Dr. Gary Curhan, the study's author, said.

The study did not look into the reasons for hearing loss, but other research has shown that listening to music with headphones can have harmful effects.

The study also noted that even a small amount of hearing loss can cause problems for children.

While the researchers didn't single out iPods, or any other device for blame, they found a significant increase in high frequency hearing loss, which they said may indicate that noise caused the problems.