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Mosquito Ringtone
It's the latest teen buzz - the perfect way to receive text messages in your classroom or in any room full of adults without being detected.
The idea for the mosquito ringtone came as a result of a ploy by shop owners to disperse groups of teenagers from congregating around their premises. A security firm devised the idea of a device that would emit a high-pitched buzz, similar to the sound a mosquito makes, which would only be detectable to young people. The reason why only people under a certain age can hear the sound is because of the way that the human ear deteriorates with time. By the age of around 20 the ear's ability to hear noises at a certain range of frequency has all but disappeared.
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“The ear of a human being is capable of hearing a wide range of pitches, the higher pitches with age are lost especially if one has been hearing loud noises for a long period," said Dave Manning of the British Hearing Institute.
Astute teenagers, at once, realised they could turn this to their advantage and so was born the silent ringtone, also known as the mosquititone or zumbitone.
Teachers are less than impressed but believe the craze for the mosquito ringtone will not last. “We teachers are not as stupid as we look,” said Religious Studies teacher Phil Allan.
“It's a bit of fun but we generally know when kids are not paying attention.
“Besides, any clued up kid would have his or her phone not set to a mosquito ringtone but to silent alert.”
The craze took root in Great Britain in the summer of 2006 before moving across the Atlantic to the United States later in the year. It is set to rival the Crazy Frog for popularity and download saturation. The Crazy mosquito ringtone zzzzzzzzzzz…