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I'm blatantly stealing this idea from several other web sites, but clearly this is a topic that's crying for a poll. As Retrospectacle and others have already reported, kids are downloading ringtones that are apparently inaudible to adults, just so they can IM each other in class without the teacher knowing. The New York Times has published the sound itself, and you can listen to it here.
The question: can you hear it? Let us know in the poll!
Update June 14 2:11 p.m.: As two of the commenters below note, this isn't actually a 17 kHz tone as the New York Times claims. To rectify this we've created a new poll with a higher-pitched sample tone. Make sure you try that one, too.
Update June 13: The votes are in, and it appears that the yeses have it. FYI, the median age of the CogDaily reader, based on previous polls, is about 30. I do still wonder if everyone hears it as loudly and clearly as kids do. As I mention in the comments, I could hear it, but I don't think it would work for me as a ringtone.
Comments
My 14 year old son can hear it, though I can't (aged 50)
Posted by: John Wilkins | June 13, 2006 8:10 AM
I can even hear it just fine on the crappy speakers built into my computer monitor...
If I were a kid in a classroom full of people using a chirp of that as notification for text messages, I'd go crazy! In addition to being really annoying, I don't believe high-frequency pure tones are very localizable, so everyone would be going for their cell phones all at once...
Posted by: Harlan | June 13, 2006 8:21 AM
I'm sure I read (but can't remember where - another perk of getting older?) that at least part of this story is only urban legend, because the piezoelectric speakers on cellphones are not capable of creating such high frequency sounds.
But that the sound has been used by shopkeepers to keep teens away, that I believe...
Posted by: magista | June 13, 2006 8:40 AM
I can only barely hear it. If it was my cell phone ringer, I'd never notice it -- especially in a noisy/crowded place. I doubt I'd notice it in a classroom setting.
My kids, meanwhile, could easily hear it, even in a different room. They say it's incredibly annoying.
Magista, the NYT article seems to be pretty clear that this isn't just urban legend.
Posted by: Dave Munger | June 13, 2006 8:48 AM
I'm 37 and I "hear" it fairly well. But it's so high pitched that the sensation really isn't quite hearing in the normal sense for me; I couldn't tell what note it is for instance.
Also, I needed to turn the volume up quite high to hear it well, so high, in fact, that I got my ears ringing for over twenty minutes afterward. The ability to gauge volume is apparently also compromised at the edge of your hearing envelope.
Posted by: Janne | June 13, 2006 9:31 AM
Assuming that the sound is an incredibly annoying, high-pitched squeal, then I most certainly can hear it.
It's rather like the sound defective electronic devices make when they're powered up.
Posted by: Matthew George | June 13, 2006 9:33 AM
im 28 and hear it
Posted by: staffpsy | June 13, 2006 9:52 AM
I'm 28, and I can hear it so well it hurts my ears.
Posted by: Josh | June 13, 2006 9:55 AM
I can here it at the lowest volume on my laptop's internal speakers in a noisy lab (vacuum pumps in the background), but I'm 27. I've actually, in a way, tested my hearing before because I was modulating something at audio frequencies. My limit is about 16 or 17 kHz, which is around (maybe just a little past) the limit the NY Times sites for 18-24 year olds (although, based on the rest of the graph, I wonder if that was supposed to be 18-29).
I thibnk it might have been interesting to include an age question in the poll.
Posted by: Colst | June 13, 2006 10:16 AM
I'm 32, and I hear it - then again, I also hear fluorescent lights, and I've heard that not everyone can do that. So. I'm not normal.
Posted by: Shadesong | June 13, 2006 10:22 AM
23 and hearing it for sure.
Posted by: Joey | June 13, 2006 10:28 AM
Holy crap, that hurts! (I'm 23 as well.)
Whatever happened to setting your phone on vibrate?
Posted by: krystyna | June 13, 2006 10:33 AM
I can hear it and I'm 41. But as has been mentioned, such high frequencies are non-localized to the listener, and I doubt this trick will end up being very useful.
Posted by: James Hrynyshyn | June 13, 2006 10:48 AM
Ow. I'm about to be 29, and I could hear that. My hearing is generally very good, though.
I teach, too. If my students try that crap, they'll be very, very sorry.
Posted by: jaclyn | June 13, 2006 10:49 AM
I'm 35 and heard it fine. The problem for me is that I hear that sound all the time: it's the sound of electrical gadget noise -- computers, power lines, fluorescent lighting -- and also the sound of the ringing in my ears when I listen to loud music. I simply wouldn't be able to differentiate the ringtone from random noise.
But if the kids want to message each other silently, why not just switch their phones to vibrate?
(In fact, why doesn't everybody just switch their phones to vibrate, and save the rest of us from being constantly interupted. Is there any reason on earth for alerting everybody within hearing distance that you are getting a call? No, there isn't. Fercrissakes, have some respect from your neighbours.)
Posted by: igor eduardo kupfer | June 13, 2006 10:52 AM
41 and heard it OK -- that is I can detect its presence or absence even in a room full of white noise. Gah, is it ever annoying.
Posted by: Craig Pennington | June 13, 2006 10:53 AM
I'm 25 and it was very easy to hear. Even though it seems like most of us could hear it, I imagine that at certain amplitudes teenagers would be able to hear it while people in their 30s or 40s could not, even though those people can hear this particular example.
Posted by: Katherine Moore | June 13, 2006 11:04 AM
Heard it... just barely, but my right ear has tinnitus (and has been having it for the past 23 years; I'm now 46).
I concur with the commenters who wondered why on Earth would anyone NOT set their cell phones to vibrate.
Posted by: Emanuele Oriano | June 13, 2006 11:05 AM
21 and can sort of hear it - it's less hearing than sensing pain. Most annoying ringtone ever.
Posted by: A Pang | June 13, 2006 11:15 AM
I had to turn my speakers up to hear it, but then I'm 60.
Posted by: Julia | June 13, 2006 11:31 AM
36 here. I can hear it with my speakers set to rock-music-played-quietly-for-the-office.
It drew attention to the slightly different "normal" high-pitched ringing in my ears.
Off to the doctor! :)
Posted by: rpsms | June 13, 2006 11:50 AM
I hear it just fine - I'm pushing 43 now. I missed out on the "Loud Rock 'n Roll" phase in my youth, and have pretty much protected my hearing all my life.
I also hear the annoying whine in CRT monitors and TV sets. I really love my LCD monitors!! Sometimes I can hear fluorescent lighting.
I had some experience with the "adults can't hear it" phenom as a kid. My Dad lost his upper range hearing due to artillary while fighting in Korea. It used to annoy me that he'd forget to turn off the turn signal in the car, and it would 'click' for miles down the road unless I told him about it. (The lighted turn indicator had burned out of his clunker.)
Posted by: Calladus | June 13, 2006 11:53 AM
Uh-oh. I'm 51 and couldn't hear it. Didn't think too much about it, although I know I have some hearing loss, until I read all the comments and realized that I used to hear all that electronic hum and whine, too.
So there ARE some blessings to old age then!
Posted by: Judith in Ottawa | June 13, 2006 1:48 PM
I'm 21 and can hear it loud and clear. Even with the volume on the sound turned down and the volume on my music turned way up, I can still detect its presence. It's very obvious, and seems to have a way of "cutting through" any other sound.
Posted by: David | June 13, 2006 2:00 PM
Turned 51 last week and couldn't hear it. Sob!
Posted by: Elf Eye | June 13, 2006 2:04 PM
36 and hear it just fine on half volume in the cube environment, but then again I hear security systems humming as I walk by too. This is just as annoying and would drive me nuts. Another vote for universal-vibrate...
Posted by: Corby | June 13, 2006 2:40 PM
The posted tone is not 17kHz. I tried making my own 17kHz tone using an audio editor and it sounded much higher pitched than the NYT file. To follow up my skepticism, I wrote out the compressed mp3 to an uncompressed wav format and Fourier-transformed the resulting signal. It is actually a 15kHz tone, so it should be audible to a much wider group of people than the 17kHz tone supposedly used as a ringtone.
Posted by: Xerxes | June 13, 2006 2:44 PM
I can hear it at the age of 23, so I'm not quite old enough to have lost my hearing. But then I'm not usually exposed to ear damaging noise, so I may be atypical (or not; I don't really know).
Posted by: Gordon Worley | June 13, 2006 3:03 PM
This is STUPID. If you don't want someone to hear your ringtone, use the vibrate mode. Hello???
Posted by: anon | June 13, 2006 3:48 PM
I'm 35 and I couldn't hear it. I turned my speakers all the way up and all I could hear was static. :( Guess I've been listening to loud music for too long.
Posted by: mama gaea | June 13, 2006 4:20 PM
I'm 32 and I can hear it quite clearly. But I've just given my girlfriend (37) an earache testing whether or not she could hear it. Hope they don't deploy the "mosquito" anywhere near where I live.
Posted by: John Wilson | June 13, 2006 4:35 PM
Hear what? Is 34 really that old?!
Posted by: ChemJerk | June 13, 2006 4:47 PM
I'm 56 and can't hear it. I heard a story about this on NPR and couldn't hear it there either.
Posted by: Alice | June 13, 2006 5:27 PM
I am a 58-year-old fossil who once could hear the flyback transformer on a TV back when they had them (18 KHz). The quality of the audio reproduction chain is key. I can't hear it though the tiny speakers on my laptop, can hear it through Etymotic ER-6 headphones. If the sound is converted from MP3 to AIFF, it is easily audible to me regardless of output device.
Posted by: Bruce Hughes | June 13, 2006 5:27 PM
I think the real question of hearing it is the quality of your reproduction. I can hear it clearly as a very high pitched squeal (annoys the dog too) but if I turn my speakers way up (digital connection to high end logitech speakers) I wind up hearing much lower artifacts (around 1-5K I'd guess). Most speakers really only want to reproduce well up to about 15K (18-20K for nicer gear) and the other thing to keep in mind is that MP3 biases against high frequencies on the encode. So that's something too. I don't know precisely what that adds to the conversation, but just thought I'd share.
Posted by: Ryan | June 13, 2006 5:59 PM
Xerxes said: "The posted tone is not 17kHz."
I just got the same results. I have some spectra on my blog to see.
http://tinyurl.com/gxby5
Posted by: skblllzzzz | June 13, 2006 6:10 PM
Heard it very loud and clear (and annoying) on my headphones at work. I'm 29. Sounds like the TV.
I don't use vibrate on my cell phone because then I wouldn't be able to hear it when I'm in another room.
Posted by: Jennifer Grucza | June 13, 2006 6:13 PM
I'm 17 and I heard this. However, I listened to a related sound yesterday and I couldn't hear it, although my friend and my sister could. Strange.
Posted by: Kele Cable | June 13, 2006 6:15 PM
skblllzzzz and xerxes: if you can produce the accurate 17 khz sound, send it to me in an email and we'll try again with a new poll tomorrow.
dave (at) wordmunger (dot) com
Posted by: Dave Munger | June 13, 2006 7:14 PM
42, loud and clear.
Posted by: flip | June 13, 2006 8:10 PM
47 years old, couldn't hear it but it did bother my ears, strangely enough.
Posted by: Kevin | June 13, 2006 10:06 PM
I can hear it just fine when I don't use firefox. I was really worried at first and then I downloaded the sound and played it under iTunes and it actually was quite noticable.
43 Male
Posted by: Dan | June 13, 2006 10:30 PM
38 and could hear it. If hear is the right concept ... more of a pain thing.
Posted by: John Lynch | June 14, 2006 12:00 AM
God, that hurts my ears! I'm 19.
Posted by: Lelia Katherine Thomas | June 14, 2006 12:58 AM
Depending on the phone and where it is vibrate can actually be rather loud. This is especially true if the phone is in/on a desk. If it is vibrating in your pocket that can make it more noticeable as you put it in and take it out of your pocket.
As a teacher I must say the ringtone doesn't really matter. I've rarely heard a phone ring in class but it is rather obvious if a student is reading or sending a message.
Posted by: Ben | June 14, 2006 2:15 AM
I'm 47 and my husband is 57 and neither of us heard a thing. Our ten-year-old daughter, on the other hand, found it really painful.
Oi.
Posted by: grubstreet | June 14, 2006 4:32 AM
43 - could not hear a thing! Blows my mind that people actually hear something
Posted by: girlfriendz | June 14, 2006 2:04 PM
ok so im age 15 and have only one thing to say.......... ow that hurts. i now know what a dog whistle is like.
Posted by: Kaleb Bruza | September 28, 2006 12:51 AM
i can hear it just fine an im 14. but jeez, its annoying as crap id never use that!! >_
Posted by: kelcie | October 20, 2007 3:00 PM