Some students are downloading a ring tone off the Internet that is too
high-pitched to be heard by most adults.

With it, high schoolers can receive text message alerts on their cell phones
without the teacher knowing.

As people age, many develop what's known as aging ear — a loss of the
ability to hear higher-frequency sounds.

The ring tone is a spin-off of technology that was originally meant to repel
teenagers — not help them. A Welsh security company developed the tone to
help shopkeepers disperse young people loitering in front of their stores
while leaving adults unaffected. The company called their product the
"Mosquito."

Donna Lewis, a teacher in Manhattan, says her colleague played the ring for
a classroom of first-graders — and all of them could hear it, while the
adults couldn't hear anything.

Sorry. I'm not hearing this.

ABC Morning news just played a story about the kids only ring tones. I must still be a kid at heart. They played a sample and I could hear it.

What!?

That is so cool.

...or at least you're a kid at ear.

I found an mp3 of it, and I can barely hear it, *sigh*, maybe it's my computer.

Hmmm, the sound gives me a headache, I can't really hear it, but it still gets on my nerves, very odd.

You are hearing it, just not processing it as noise.

Interesting.

I don't know how useful it would be as a ring tone though if I don't really process it as noise.

Well, if you're sitting in class and get a shooting pain in your head, you know it's the phone.

Or you have a tumor.

If I get a cell phone, that would so be my ring tone, "damn I have a headache, I either have a tumor or someone's calling me", that would be awesome.

This has got to be a hoax. Nothing on snopes.com yet.

I don't think it's a hoax. The MP3 registers a really high note on the Winamp equalizer thingie, but I can't hear it at all.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/06/12/technology/12ring.html?_r=2&ei=5094&en=f6f68dd7c0b578ee&hp=&ex=1150171200&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&partner=homepage&adxnnlx=1150196802-nDv0bYTCzQJc26+0ft0hGQ&oref=slogin

It's not tumah

Wow! I can hear it!

A little background - for the last 10 years or so, a combination of benign growths in my middle ears and a couple of ear infections have left me about 40% deaf. A big chunk of my ability to follow a conversation is lip-reading to complete what my ears don't pick up. I'm always asking people to repeat themselves and speak up. I have to select my ringtone carefully to make sure it's a range I can hear.

The fact that I can hear this tone plain as day is nothing short of astounding to me.

my ears are bleeding, mommy...

Clear as a bell.

Which is odd, given my profession. People in my field normally lose hearing in the higher frequencies. It's so bad that we're supposed to have mandatory Audio tests every year and each unit is supposed to have Hearing Conservation Officers.

Of course I'm weird anyways, since according to my audiograms my hearing has actually gotten better in the 15 years I've been in the Army.

Hear what?

Why is my nose bleeding?

Teenagers getting ringtones that eventually give them tumours.

Yeah. I can get behind that technology.

This one I can hear perfectly:

http://download.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/atc/atc_teenbuzz.mp3

Want some real fun, put this into iTunes and play it on a loop, if you can hear it, you will have a roaring good time.

Can't hear it at all. Does this mean I can officially hate teenagers now?