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Taking advantage of the fact that one's ability to percieve high pitched sounds diminishes with age, someone developed a ringtone that only people under about 35 can hear clearly.
If you can't hear it, don't worry! You can use it as a kid-repellent.
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I'm 47, I've played drums in rock bands since my early teens.
I've also suffered a few serious ear infections after scuba diving.
I can hear that tone easily (and annoyingly).
I'm actually looking forward to the day that I can no longer hear the high-frequency tones emitted by some door sensors (admittedly, those are probably no longer on the market, but there's still a few old ones around).
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I thought I'd gone prematurely deaf, before I realised that my computer was set on mute! Yikes, but that's a horrible noise. Finger nails, meet blackboard. Ugh. Posts: 1528 | Registered: Nov 2004
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It sounds like the noise hearing aids make when they're turned up too high. Now both old and young people can sqeal annoyingly in public!
Posts: 9866 | Registered: Apr 2002
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Although if that were my ringtone, it would get lost in the many OTHER high-pitched sounds I can hear. Like you know those scanner things they put to make sure people don't walk out of places with things? They have them by the doors of our library, and I wince every time I walk through them.
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They just did that on the news. I didn't hear it, Amanda did. I didn't feel old until that moment. Posts: 2034 | Registered: Apr 2004
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My mom just sent me that link. She couldn't hear it but my brother (18) said she had it turned up so loud that he could hear across the house. I heard it and it hurt my ears so badly that eyes started to water.
Posts: 2064 | Registered: Dec 2003
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Bella Bee, you think so? They make my head...not hurt, exactly, but not not hurt either. And they're a little disorienting (which is kind of ironic).
Of course, the disorienting aspect could be the fact that they always wake me at 4 in the morning needing to be captured and released back into the great outdoors.
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I couldn't hear it but I could tell there was a sound because my cat got very wide eyed, her ears perked up and she turned toward me like, "what the heck was that?"
Posts: 862 | Registered: Oct 2003
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Noemon - Yeah, I like bat-watching on summer nights, so it helps that I can hear where they are. They don't come indoors often though. We do have a robin who likes to fly around the house. Luckily, he's bright enough to find his own way back out again.
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Although if that were my ringtone, it would get lost in the many OTHER high-pitched sounds I can hear. Like you know those scanner things they put to make sure people don't walk out of places with things? They have them by the doors of our library, and I wince every time I walk through them.
-pH
I was going to say the EXACT same thing... Crazy.
Ours are so bad that I sidle up to them and hop through with my eyes shut. People walk in and out without even noticing, but I can't stand it.
On a related note- my parents once bought me one of those sharper image air purifiers. It worked fine, but the bonus bathroom purifier, when heated up, emitted a ghastly high pitched whine. My parents where constantly plugging it back into the wall and I was constantly being drawn from all corners of the house to explain that I couldn't stand the sound it was making. My parents didn't believe me, which is suprising since I could sense when the thing had been plugged in. I eventually threw it away.
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I hear that noise whenever i'm in the same room as a TV that's on but without noise. It's really annoying. I mean, I can often tell if a TV is on without anything playing from several rooms away because of high pitched whiney noises like that.
Posts: 1466 | Registered: Jan 2003
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...that's awful. It's the exact same sound that keeps you awake when you've been playing in a drum line all day without earplugs and your band camp's in the middle of nowhere so there's absolute silence at night.
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I'm twenty-one. I hear it, but not enough for it to be annoying. Wow, do I feel old. or hearing-impaired. Maybe it's genetic. My cousin had a hearing aid for a while cuz he couldn't hear high pitched sounds.. I think he stopped using it since there aren't that many sounds like that for him to hear anyway.
Posts: 1056 | Registered: Mar 2002
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Youch. Painful. Almost like someone drilling in my brain (without the extreme pain, of course). It sounds like a particularly annoying computer screen that requires a good whack to stop it from whistling. Or the television when it's on a blue screen.
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I'm 16 and I hear it loud and clear. But it doesn't really hurt my ears/head. It's the sound that Mr. Funny described that I am in pain over.
When I hear our TV just humming happily, it's so tempting to take a meat tenderizer to it... or just turn it off.
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Why did I even click? I mean, people have already said it's annoying, etc., etc., but I still had to check it! It hurtses us, yeeess, it does...
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I'm 33 and I didn't hear a thing. (Though after I cranked the volume on my headphones all the way up I ended up with a mild headache.)
Posts: 884 | Registered: Mar 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Bella Bee: Noemon - Yeah, I like bat-watching on summer nights, so it helps that I can hear where they are. They don't come indoors often though. We do have a robin who likes to fly around the house. Luckily, he's bright enough to find his own way back out again.
I haven't officially gone bat watching in ages. Last summer, though, I did see the occasional bat flying around the streetlight in my yard, filling up on bugs. That was fun. The best place I've ever watched bats is the Congress Ave. Bridge in Austin, TX.
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I'm only 17 and I can't hear it. I had to have grommets in my ears two different times in my life, at 5 and 10, to fix my hearing before. This is really worrying me.
Edit to add: I did the same thing as Shmuel; turned it all the way up and now have a mild headache, and yet I didn't hear a sound.
Posts: 1138 | Registered: Nov 2005
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I heard it just fine. Didn't really give me a headache- but the speakers on this computer just suck- and can't be turned up loud anyways because of that.
Actually the age isn't under 35- I read somewhere else about how kids are using cell phones in school with this ringtone so that teachers can't hear- and it's supposedly like around the age of 50-60 is when they lose the ability to hear it.
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The graph alongside the New York Times article claims that it's too high for most people past their teens.
Note: Experimenting by Chris Bridges suggests that iTunes automatically transposes it down to a more widely audible level, while Windows Media Player does not.
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I can't wait until I'm too old to hear it. It made me feel bad. And it was very soft, so soft, in fact, that I can't imagine it being used as a cell phone ring. I would never hear it, so I don't think I was hearing it at its full volume.
Posts: 2880 | Registered: Jun 2004
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This story was linked (from a British site) through one of the blogs I follow. And while I had to crank my sound to hear anything, once it got loud enough, I found myself in serious agony. My 12 year old was also covering her ears trying to block it out. The cats? Not a thing.
I also pick up on random electronic squeals from time to time that nobody else around me hears. And I'm often not near an obvious source when it happens.
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quote:Originally posted by Goody Scrivener: I also pick up on random electronic squeals from time to time that nobody else around me hears. And I'm often not near an obvious source when it happens.
This often happens to people who have been abducted by aliens. You see, they implanted a transceiver in your head, and you are picking up the alien signals. Make sure to send a card and some flowers to the mother ship on Mother's Day.
Posts: 10397 | Registered: Jun 2005
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My Mom's Palm Pilot makes this type of sound and I can't stand to be near when she has it on (without exception during church )
Posts: 697 | Registered: Nov 2005
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quote: Note: Experimenting by Chris Bridges suggests that iTunes automatically transposes it down to a more widely audible level, while Windows Media Player does not. [/QB]
Strange, I downloaded it to iTunes and brought my laptop to school to test it out. It worked fine; I gave a lot of students headaches and made the teachers feel old.
Posts: 959 | Registered: Oct 2005
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My mom walked up the stairs when I had it going, saying that her hearing aids just started buzzing but it wasn't the battery low noise. I turned it off.
Posts: 5362 | Registered: Apr 2004
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I can hear it (it don't hurt though) and I'm 32. My mom can't. I had a TV that makes that sound. Drove me crazy. I was so glad when I got an LCD.
Edit to add: my cat heard it. She went walking around looking for it (or to get away from it, seeing that she left the room...)
quote:Originally posted by Goody Scrivener: I also pick up on random electronic squeals from time to time that nobody else around me hears. And I'm often not near an obvious source when it happens.
This often happens to people who have been abducted by aliens. You see, they implanted a transceiver in your head, and you are picking up the alien signals. Make sure to send a card and some flowers to the mother ship on Mother's Day.
That wasn't the mother ship, that was Newark...
Posts: 4515 | Registered: Jul 2004
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I tried it again, this time with the dogs around. Xavier could barely hear it but both dogs bolted out of the room.
Posts: 2064 | Registered: Dec 2003
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You know, it's really hard for me to describe the sounds of certain songs/albums to people because they just don't hear it. Like, when they compress songs (like for radio and so forth), it drives me up a wall. Completely up a wall. It just sounds so FLAT. I can't get caught up in a song unless it sounds really, really full. Does anyone else notice this sort of thing? I think maybe that's one of the reasons I really, really can't stand playing my mp3s with an FM transmitter or something.
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You can here a wider range of high-pitched sounds here. Select Mosquito Tones, and preview sounds at 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, and 20 kHz.
I can hear up through 16 kHz well, 17 sort of, and the Mosquito tone. Not the upper three pitches, though.
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I heard it, but only in one ear, and now I have a ringing in that ear. Also, my eardrum is irritated.
Posts: 21182 | Registered: Sep 2004
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rivka, I could hear the 14 and 15 kHz ones, and they HURT. I could also hear the mosquito one but not the others.
Oh, and earlier I said I couldn't hear the original link. That's not entirely true--I could tell that there was a sound, but it was nearly inaudible and didn't bother me. I actually have a high-pitched ringing in my ears a lot of the time, although it isn't irritating and I don't usually notice it, so I don't think it's tinn . . .itus (however you spell that). Anyway, the original link sounded like that to me--in other words, almost like silence, but I could tell something was there. But I wouldn't notice it if it was a cell phone ring. On the other hand, he lower-frequency mosquito ringtones I'd notice.
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