Mosquito Ringtones and Why Parents Can't Hear Them

Teens Can Hear Mosquito Ringtones, but Teachers and Parents Can't

Brad Sylvester
Imagine if you had a ringtone on your cell phone that only you could hear. For many teens, Mosquito Ringtones makes this possible. The sonic frequency of Mosquito Ringtones is so high that most adults old enough to have a child with a cell phone can't hear it. Kids and teens have no problem with the high pitch of Mosquito Ringtones. Not only can most parents not hear the ringtone, but most teachers will have no idea when a student's cell phone is ringing with a Mosquito Ringtone while nearly every student in the class will hear it loud and clear.

Why Parents Can't Hear Mosquito Ringtones

To understand how Mosquito Ringtones can be so selectively heard, we must understand something about human hearing. We've all heard that human hearing extends covers the frequencies from 20Hz to 20,000Hz. Hz is the abbreviation for Hertz, meaning cycles per second. It's true nominally that we human beings can hear these frequencies, but that's under optimal conditions. For most of us, the highest frequency we can hear gets lower and lower every year of our adult life. This effect can be worsened if we listened to loud music often when we were younger. BY the time we're 30 years old, most of us can't hear anything higher than about 14,000Hz, if that.

Mosquito Ringtones Take Advantage of Parents Age

So knowing that teens can hear much higher frequencies than their parents and most adults, it's really a simple thing to make a recording of a tone that's higher than 14,000Hz. In the case of the Mosquito Ringtone, 17,000Hz is used. If the cell phone's speaker is capable of reproducing these frequencies, when a Mosquito Ringtone is played by kids and teenagers will have no problem hearing it, while most us old folks have no idea that any sound at all is being produced. Our hearing has deteriorated past the point where those tones are audible.

Exceptional Ears

Of course, every human being is different. The rate of decline in hearing capabilities varies from individual to individual and some older people experience only minimal reductions in the highest frequencies that they can hear. For Mosquito Ringtone users, this means that occasionally an adult will be able to hear the tone loud and clear. Just hope that doesn't happen in the middle of school. For some, there may be few things as annoying as a mosquito buzzing around, but for teachers, a Mosquito Ringtone causing a buzz in the classroom might top the list.

Test your Ears with Mosquito Ringtones

Curious about whether you can hear Mosquito Ringtones? A website called Jetcityorange.com has Mosquito Ringtone samples that you can play through your computer or download as a MP3 file. Bring your kids into the room and see whether they can hear it, just to satisfy yourself that a tone is really being played.

Published by Brad Sylvester - Featured Contributor in Lifestyle

Brad spent 18 years in the consumer electronics industry, including more than ten years in new product development. He now writes full time from his home in the mountains of New Hampshire.   View profile

  • Our ability to hear high frequencies deteriorates as we age.
  • By the time we're 30, most of us can't hear much past 14kHz.
  • The Mosquito Ringtone plays at 17kHz, withn the audible range of teens, but not parents or teachers.

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