Apparently I missed the (ahem) buzz around this sound a few years back or so, but it seems that some shopkeepers that got tired of teens loitering used to put up a sound called “the mosquito” a sound almost all teenagers can hear, but very few people over 30 can. The frequency is a whopping 17.4kHz, which puts it up there. At some point there was a little “revolution” and some teenagers started using it as a ringtone so adults couldn’t hear their cellphones ring in class without having to turn it off.
I’m, of course, interested in people over 30 mostly, as that’s when you shouldn’t really be able to hear it, but anyone is welcome. If you ARE a teenager and can’t hear it try turning up your speakers a bit, I though I had premature hearing loss at first but they made the noise on the file pretty quiet so you may have to amplify the volume.
In other news: AUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH MY FUCKING EARS OH GOD THEY’RE STILL RINGING, I SOLEMNLY SWEAR TO NEVER SOUND A DOG WHISTLE IF THIS IS WHAT IT DOES TO THEM AUGH!
Second this (28). For me any tv actually grates on my nerves. As far as hearing loss i have some. I have to say “What?” and “can you repeat that?” constantly at work…
39, and yes, I can hear it. I’ve always been sensitive to high-frequency sounds; when I was a kid, approaching the Sears at one end of the mall was always really difficult, because of the huge bank of TVs squealing away.
(I had my hearing tested recently, and I passed the “soft” and “high-pitch” tests with flying colors. Turns out, though, I do have a slight hearing impairment, but it takes a different form.)
38 and heard it just fine. I was surprised because I know I have some very slight hearing loss from my musician days; my wife can hear very quiet noises that I can’t.
Actually, on my speakers I can hear it with them hardly turned up at all - like 2mm past OFF.
Which is weird, 'cause last time we did this, I couldn’t hear it at all. I think maybe this isn’t the same frequency that made the rounds a while back, since so many of we “old people” are hearing it.
Female, 34.
(And again, my teenager in the next room over said, “Um…OW! Stop that!” even when the volume was pretty low. Maybe I should make it his alarm clock noise!)
50, I had the volume set at the lower third on my laptop and heard it clearly (it was REALLY annoying). I’m also confused because I can’t hear over 15 kHz on the misquito ringtown web site.
Static at the highest volume, silence one notch below that.
It reminds me of my father and father-in-law not being able to hear crickets chirping. My FIL actually jokes that he’s convinced they’ve all died out and are now extinct. My husband and I, my parents and his parents were in Palm Springs last Fall and I could barely pay attention to the conversation we were having on the patio over the cacophony of crickets. There were thousands of them and they were LOUD. My husband, my step-mother and I could even hear them all the way in the house in the kitchen. Both fathers swore it was dead silent out there. Creepy.
Maybe I should make it his alarm clock noise!)