Slap & Tickle

First, The Knees... Now, My Ears

There is a story in the news about shops in England using a high-pitched frequency—nicknamed “The Mosquito”—to scatter teenagers to prevent their loitering about. The frequency cannot be heard by adults over a certain age, so kids hate it and adults don’t notice. Sounds fine by me…

However, leave it to those crafty kids to make that work for them—they’ve now devised a way to use the sound as a ring-tone for their phones that their parents and teachers cannot hear… leaving them to text and call leaving adults none the wiser.

One of the sites where downloading is available lists the approximate age one should be to hear the tone. I can easily hear in the above 60, at 60 and at 50… after that, I’m pretty much done. At the ripe old age of 43, I have the hearing of a 50 year old.

I blame listening to Cheap Trick to loud on my headphones as a teenager.*

If you want to test your hearing—and I’m sure this is entirely scientific—check out their website HERE.

*Okay, who am I kidding? It was Funny Girl—damn you, Barbra Streisand!