HEARING LOSS PREVENTION: MUSICIANS AND HEARING LOSS
TEST YOURSELF TEEN BUZZ
YOU ARE SO OLD YOU'VE ALREADY LOST YOUR HEARING
A wall-mounted gadget designed to drive
away loiterers with a shrill, piercing noise audible only to teens and
young adults is infuriating civil liberties groups and tormenting young
people after being introduced into the United States.
The $1,500 device has also been challenged in some American cities
and towns that have proposed installing it, with some criticizing the
tactic as needlessly cruel.
Santell said the noise can be heard
by animals and babies but is bothersome only to children older than 12
and becomes unbearable after several minutes, making it a perfect
teen-repellent. The same sound is used as a cell phone ring tone by
deaf adults and is a popular download on the Internet.
The Mosquito, which targets loiterers, projects a shrill noise audible only to teens and young adults.
Almost 1,000 units of the device, called the Mosquito, have been sold
in the United States and Canada after the product debuted last year,
according to Daniel Santell, the North America importer of the device
sold under the company name Kids Be Gone.
The high-frequency
sound has been likened to fingernails dragged across a chalkboard or a
pesky mosquito buzzing in your ear. It can be heard by most people in
their teens and early 20s who still have sensitive hair cells in their
inner ears. Whether you can hear the noise depends on how much your
hearing has deteriorated: How loud you blast your iPod, for example,
could affect your ability to detect it.
- High-frequency noise is similar to buzzing mosquito or nails on chalkboard
- It's audible only by those who still have sensitive cells on inner ears
- $1,500 device challenged overseas and in American towns
- Many adults laud Mosquito for its success in targeting loiterers