Mosquito Tone Test

How to use

1. Turn the volume down. The tone is preset to about 17.4 kHz. Set your volume low first, since a tone this high gets harsh quickly.
2. Press Play. Start the tone and listen for a high, insect like whine. If you hear nothing, raise the volume a little at a time.
3. Test it on others. Play it in a room and see who reacts. The split between younger and older ears is the whole point of the mosquito tone.

Why test this

The mosquito tone is the most famous high frequency sound there is, and hearing it is a quick novelty test of your young ear range. It traces back to the Mosquito, a device that blasts a roughly 17 kHz tone to push teenagers away from shops and stairwells, working only because older staff cannot hear it. Teenagers flipped the idea around and used the same pitch as a phone ringtone in class. Playing it yourself answers two things at once: whether your hearing still reaches that far up, and whether the classic trick would actually work for you. It is also a fun group test, since a room full of mixed ages rarely agrees on whether anything is playing.

What the results mean

At about 17.4 kHz the mosquito tone sits right at the upper edge of hearing, so the result splits sharply by age. If you catch a thin, whining buzz, your high frequency hearing is still in the younger range. Hearing nothing is completely normal past your mid twenties and simply means the very top of your range has rolled off, which happens to almost everyone in time. Check that your gear can reproduce it before reading anything into a miss, since many phone and laptop speakers cannot reach 17.4 kHz. The most telling demo is social. Play it among people of different ages and watch the divide, since that gap is exactly what the original device relied on.

FAQ

What is the mosquito tone?

It is a very high frequency tone, around 17 to 18 kHz, that younger ears pick up but most older adults cannot. It got its name from the Mosquito device, which uses the sound to discourage teenagers from loitering.

Why can teenagers hear the mosquito tone but adults cannot?

The hair cells that sense the highest frequencies wear down with age and noise. Teenagers still have them, so they catch a 17.4 kHz tone that the adults nearby often cannot hear at all.

What is the teen buzz ringtone?

Students turned the mosquito frequency into a ringtone so a phone could alert them in class without a teacher hearing it. This is the same tone, so you can check whether it would work for you.

Is the mosquito tone harmful?

At a low volume it is harmless. The risk with any tone you can barely hear is turning it up loud to find it, which can stress small speakers and tire your ears, so keep the level gentle.