Status: Undetermined
I've received quite a few emails about this. A British paper,
metro.co.uk, reports that resourceful teenagers have devised a way to make the ringing of their cellphones inaudible to adults. The trick is that they've recorded the sound of the Mosquito, which is a device that emits ultrasonic tones inaudible to most people over the age of twenty-five, but quite audible, and rather annoying, to people under the age of 25:
Techno-savvy pupils have adapted the Mosquito alarm, used to drive teenage gangs away from shopping centres. They can receive calls and texts during lessons without teachers having the faintest idea what is going on. The alarm, which has been praised by police, is highly effective because its ultra-high sound can be heard only by youths but not by most people over 20. Schoolchildren have recorded the sound, which they named Teen Buzz, and spread it from phone to phone via text messages and Bluetooth technology. Now they can receive calls and texts during lessons without teachers having the faintest idea what is going on.
Can this be real? Well, the Mosquito is real enough (I posted about it back in
November 2005), and it is true that young people can usually hear higher frequencies than older people because we lose the ability to hear high frequencies as we age. The question is whether cellphone speakers can generate these ultrasonic frequencies.
Boing Boing posts a comment from one of their readers who swears that cellphone speakers would not be able to do this. However, another reader links to an
article that contains an
mp3 recording of the Mosquito sound. (When I listen to it I can't hear any high-pitched noise, just a bunch of street noise.) So if computer speakers can generate these frequencies, perhaps some high-end cellphone speakers also can. Seems plausible. In other words, I'm not yet willing to label this story as a hoax or false rumor, even though it does seem to be a bit far-fetched.
Comments
Erk, if that's true (I haven't listened to any of the recordings, since I don't have any speakers or headphones attached to my computer), then I've been listening to that for the past 1 and a half days at work. Wretched air conditioning.
I'm 44 in July '06
o ive also noticed that it really only takes your hands to block the sound, so much for teen repellent
Hey, maybe when cellphones can play much higher frequencies, we can make ring tones for dogs. 😊
It is almost like I can't really hear it when I play it. Does it need to be played fairly loud? I guess as said before, it's probably my speakers. But I want to be sure.
My ears hurt after it played. But I didn't notice really any ringing or... "chirping".
Ehh... Normal?
If I turn my television on, and put the sound on Mute, I can hear the high-pitched whine coming from the CRT tube perfectly clear. Also, when my computer monitor displays a lot of white on the screen at a refresh rate of lower than 80hz, I can hear that too. Both are MUCH higher pitched than the mosquito.
I think it's the "pulsing" sound that adds to its annoyance. One can easily tune out a constant noise, but if it's pulsing it makes it harder to ignore.
http://download.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/atc/atc_teenbuzz.mp3
Last sunday i went into a pub with my girlfriend and her family for a meal and they had a few of these devices around the pub. I walked in and heard them right away and because there was more then one the pulsing was sickening. My girlfriend and her family couldn't hear these devices but could tell i was in distress. I went to the bar and ask the manager if they could be turned off which he refused , claiming i couldn't hear them and was making a fuss. so i decided to unplug these devices myself. He was not happy, but then being backed up by the people i was with we said we would not stay in the pub and find somewhere else to eat unless they stayyed off. I politly reminded the manager that these devices annoy a number of people and that he would not be happy if he was put in a room is an alarm he could not turn off and that he could turn them back on after i left. Half way thou the meal he came over and said sorry because one of this bar maids said that her son wouldn't come into to the pub to pick her up because of the same thing...
i could hear the sound fine
it hurts my ears after a while
neither of my parents could hear it
but my brother and i could
If I was a teacher, I would probably go postal on my students.
If you can't hear it..ignorance is bliss.
fatteeeeeeeeee
and with headphones.. i can hear it distinctly.
rather annoying.
dont hear it on the computer speaks.
peace.
I'm 13, and I could hear it at the volume of 1. I don't know why, but all of a sudden my head felt hot, and I started jerking...hopefully it will wear off. I even started crying. I played it at night, but nobody woke up...my back hurts now. I hope this goes away.
The sound is some sort of chirping noise...Kind of hard to describe exactly, though.
Couldn't hear it on the tv ad either.
http://www.ultrasonic-ringtones.com/
I'm only 19 and couldn't easily hear higher than 16.7kHz.
It feels like I turned into a dog and I can hear a dog whistle when I listen to it.😛
Old people can hear it, so it's not really effective.