The same high-frequency targeting lets teens create adult-invisible ringtones

Evidence

However, young people now benefit from this basic idea because it has now been used to provide mobile ringtones, sometimes known as “teen buzz,” that cannot be heard by older people. The original teen buzz was created by recording the output from a mosquito device, but nowadays there are plenty of synthesized downloadable teen buzz ringtones available online. In general, these ringtones are not audible to adults over 25 years of age, but this does depend on the overall amplitude of the sound and the rate of presbycusis change for given individuals. — David M. Howard, Jamie Angus, Acoustics and Psychoacoustics, 2576

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes how communication channels exploit asymmetries in perception — similar to figure-ground and auditory filtering discussions in earlier chapters.
• CANDY: Genuinely fun and tweetable: a device meant to shoo teens away got hacked into ringtones invisible to their teachers.
• FICTION: Teen buzz as a youth-only secret language is a ready-made story hook about generational isolation.