Ephebiphobia and the sound of the Mosquito

[Xulonn]

LINK1 LINK2

The Mosquito is a commercial "acoustic deterrent device" that emits a 17.4kHz tone at 108dB. It is designed to deter teenagers and young adults from hanging out, vandalizing, or doing other "undesirable" activities at night. It has been in use for over a decade, and its use is now being challenged as discriminatory.

An interesting aside is that some creative teen apparently realized that a high frequency ringtone would not be audible to older teachers, and recorded the sound of the Mosquito with their cellphone for use as a ringtone for use in classrooms and other "cell phone restricted" locations. No double blind testing required!

Below is a 2010 BBC report on the device with bits of British humor that American media - especially hopelessly stodgy outlets like Fox News - could never duplicate. And yes, ephebiphobia is a real word that is used and defined in the video.

 

[Blumlein 88]

I've wondered if most phones would produce 17 khz over the speaker.

 

[mansr]

The Mosquito is a commercial "acoustic deterrent device" that emits a 17.4kHz tone at 108dB. It is designed to deter teenagers and young adults from hanging out, vandalizing, or doing other "undesirable" activities at night. It has been in use for over a decade, and its use is now being challenged as discriminatory.

A 7-Eleven in Portland, OR is blaring classical music outside the shop, presumably with the same intention.

 

[Soniclife]

And yes, ephebiphobia is a real word that is used and defined in the video.

And nothing to do with Philophobia, which is also not a made-up word, and also a great album by Arab Strap.
https://genius.com/albums/Arab-strap/Philophobia (I accept no responsibility for things you might learn clicking through those lyrics)

P.S. It's interesting how they chose Robert Webb to do the voice over for that clip, and illustrated it with a clip from peep show, makes the whole thing come across as satire, when it's not.