The Annoying Sound Stores Use To Drive Youngins Away
Here's an example of that annoying noise that's supposedly being used to drive teenagers away from stores and other places where they tend to gather and formulate their plans for world domination. It has also been used in commercials. Supposedly, only people under 25 can hear the noise. For the record, our staff can hear it and we think it sounds like that ringing in your ears that happens when people are "talking about you." Annoying. [Teenager Audio Test via BuzzFeed] (Photo: Karl O'Brien)
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I'm glad no one around here uses that. It's the same sound a TV makes if something (throwback transformer?) gets out of alignment. I used to have a hell of a time walking through the TV section at any store.
So I'm under 25 and I can hear it very clear. And it's not a pleasant sound at all. I definitely would not want to be anywhere near where this sound is coming from.
good god that's annoying.
Even the aftertaste is annoying.
Are we sure that's really the sound? I'm 32 years old and have been playing drums in a heavy metal band for 10 years. I know I have serious hearing loss, yet I can hear it just fine.
I am almost ten years over 25 and can hear it. It makes me want to cringe.
I've had that set as a silent ringtone on my cell phones for over a year now. I can hear it and my wife can hear it. She says it hurts her head, but most people I work with are oblivious to the sound.
I'm 38 and I can hear it. And, yes, it makes me cringe too.
As was said on the Digg posting of it this morning:
this is not an accurate test, whoever made this one did not properly make the sound bight.
This one has undertones that make almost anyone able to hear it.
@techstar25: I'm a little closer to the border at 27, but I have no problem hearing that whatsoever and have hearing damage from drumming as well.
34 and ouch, that kind of hurt!
I'm 27 and I can hear it. Woohoo, my youth is not yet over! I too can be tortured for loitering!
Oh my fucking God. 30 and painful.
Hear@techstar25: Isn't hearing loss due to abuse selective to those same frequencies?
I can hear it too, and I'm uncomfortably beyond your years.
I thought it might be hard to hear but it wasn't at all.
But it doesn't sound like a mosquito to me. I think it sounds like that noise they use in movies and TV shows when they go to the POV of someone who's just lost their hearing due to an explosion or something. That or old electrical equipment.
Double that 25 and add some more, and I can hear it. This is a joke? Yes?
It's not really about your age per se. As people age, they tend to lose their acuity for very high pitched sounds, making it more likely that older people can't hear the sound and younger people can. Similarly, as people age their eyeballs tend to elongate, making many people become farsighted. This is just a general population trend, and YMMV as always. There are plenty of 89 year-olds with perfect hearing and/or eyesight, and plenty of 14 year-olds who wear glasses.
Honestly, the research that was done on this particular frequency is pretty old at this point. Given the prevalence of iPod use in the teenage population (and the subsequent hearing loss issues) it's pretty likely that many teens can't hear the noise anymore.
Or won't, since they have their iPods playing.
I was afraid I wouldn't hear it due to abusing my ear drums with headphones all these years. But alas, I'm 24 and I can hear it loud and clear. It's so annoying!
@Brain.wav: and close to the sound the TV makes when it's the tube is left on, without a picture.
And the sound of a florescent bulb that's going bad :(
Wow, this sound... I can't believe it, it almost made me cry 'cause its so painful.
Yeah I could totally see how that would deter kids from hanging out anywhere around this sound. It's too bad I can hear it...
I am 38, and that sound is fucking annoying.
On the other hand, I can also tell a 128k MP3 from a 192k. I know that a lot of people can't.
I'm guessing this sound is about 16kHz or so?
Yeah...I can hear it...and I think, just on principle, I would stop going to any store that used this passive-aggressive method. Not to mention that parents and infants aren't gonna be thrilled when their kids start screaming any time they approach those particular stores.
I'm 47 and heard it loud and clear. Clean living.
@kc2idf: My dad used to sneak into my room to use my computer when I was a teenager and would leave the monitor on after he shut the tower off. I could be in any part of the house and hear the hum kick in. At first he would deny/get defensive, until he figured out I still had my high end hearing. Then he offered me a job in his sound studio. :)
Why didn't it bother my dog?
Is there anyone who can't hear it? It is annoying.
I could hear it but I had to crank up the speakers louder than my streaming of NPR.... What if you have shitty speakers that don't go to that frq? I'm at work, these Labtec speakers aren't the pinnacle of performance.
Sorry for the third comment...
"It has also been used in commercials."
why??
@techstar25: Your high end hearing doesn't take a beating when you're a drummer, so it may very well be preserved.
The claim that it only works on people who are over 25 is a gross generalization, based on bad science. Some kids lose their high-end early, some people have it well into midlife.
@mmmsoap: That's the horizontal oscillator you're hearing. For analog TVs it runs at 15.75 kHz when there's a picture displayed, and usually rises a bit when there's no picture or the set has lost sync. Being able to hear it used to come in handy when I was working at a TV station; if I was hooking something up I could hear when I had sync even if I couldn't see the screen.
Wow. I think my ears are permanently damaged from that sound. I'm way past my teenager years--as in old enough to be their parent, and I've spent my entire life abusing my ears with music and earbud-type headphones, but I still heard it. I did have to turn my monitor volume up to hear it, and now I'm sorry I did.
20 and I can hear it, but only for a second or two. After that it seems to fade out and I don't notice it anymore. I could still see it giving me a headache after hearing it for so long though.
@Coopon: actually, i have to wonder about this a little bit... depending on the quality / encoding of the audio feed, as well as my headphones, i would think the higher frequencies would be attenuated before they even got to my ears, so i don't really trust this.
@Coopon: Hmm. Some of the higher tones seem to *ascend* in pitch as the numbers go down, which suggests to me I'm hearing distorted undertones, not the actual tone. Not sure if that's my hearing or a limitation of my playback hardware, though.
@nataku83: I don't think I'd notice anything before 19.8, but listening for it, I can just barely hear it at 21.1 - but it's brief and it mostly just sounds like my fluorescent light bulbs started humming a fraction more loudly.
@nataku83: Yeah, I couldn't really hear it until it got down to 12 kHz, but I can hear the horizontal oscillator of my TV. I wonder if the YouTube conversion downsampled it?
@a5un: I'm over 25, and can hear it very clearly too. It's a horrible sound, it makes me want to claw my ears off.
I'm 27 and that just hurt my ears... maybe I won't be able to hear it anymore.
Sounds very similar to the noise a CRT TV makes when it is left on dead air (Black screen - Not static)
@Michael Belisle: So I'm not the only one who hears it long after it quits playing? I still have that ringing in my ears, and it's been several minutes.
Oh, and I'm 42.
@solareclipse2: I read somewhere that teens were doing this so they could hear their phones in class and their teachers couldn't. I'm 30 and could hear it, but maybe not if there was enough backgorund noise
Is there really a noise? I can't hear it.