Want to make something uncool? Have adults get into it

I first heard about it on NPR via podcast a few weeks ago: A UK scientist created the Mosquito tone as a form of teenager repellant. It’s an annoying high pitch whiiiiiiiiiine that age diminishes the ability for one to hear. (Truthfully, I can’t hear the one in the NPR story.)

While it serves that purpose, teenagers realized it also worked as a sound to signal things they wanted to hear (and for their peers to hear), but not adults. Say, as for the sound played by a cellphone when they received an instant message in class.

Well, it’s no longer cool, now that New York Times did a story on it today and practically every adult I know has been e-mailing each other high pitched MP3s, asking “can you hear this?” (Many, I suspect, don’t read the NYT — I know I don’t — but just are passing this around as an old folks meme, like a bootleg of REO Speedwagon or something else deeply depressing.)

So, naturally, I’m going to be using the tone for phone messages myself.

Sorry, kids. First snowboarding, and now this.

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