Poll: Can you hear this?

My 14 year old son can hear it, though I can't (aged 50)

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...

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...

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.

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.

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.

im 28 and hear it

I'm 28, and I can hear it so well it hurts my ears.

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.

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.

23 and hearing it for sure.

Holy crap, that hurts! (I'm 23 as well.)

Whatever happened to setting your phone on vibrate?

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.

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.

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.)

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.

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.

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.

21 and can sort of hear it - it's less hearing than sensing pain. Most annoying ringtone ever.

I had to turn my speakers up to hear it, but then I'm 60.

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! :)

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.)

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!

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.

Turned 51 last week and couldn't hear it. Sob!

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...

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.

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).

This is STUPID. If you don't want someone to hear your ringtone, use the vibrate mode. Hello???

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.

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.

Hear what? Is 34 really that old?!

I'm 56 and can't hear it. I heard a story about this on NPR and couldn't hear it there either.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

42, loud and clear.

47 years old, couldn't hear it but it did bother my ears, strangely enough.

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

38 and could hear it. If hear is the right concept ... more of a pain thing.

God, that hurts my ears! I'm 19.

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.

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.

43 - could not hear a thing! Blows my mind that people actually hear something

ok so im age 15 and have only one thing to say.......... ow that hurts. i now know what a dog whistle is like.

i can hear it just fine an im 14. but jeez, its annoying as crap id never use that!! >_<