The Sounds of Silence

"Kids kept asking me if I heard something, I was like, 'No, what are you talking about?"

These are the words of  Mr. Beane, a friend of mine and a teacher in a small school district in Iowa. He is referring to a question I had asked him about a new ring tone that was supposedly popular amongst teenagers. It features a high pitched ring tone that is "invisible" to adult years; the frequency is higher than what most adult ears can heed. Teenagers, however have no problem picking up the high pitched sound, and many use it to secretly receive text messages and phone calls in class.

Mr. Beane continues, "Every once in a while they would say, there it is again, listen. So I listened and again, nothing. The kids said it was annoying, and it continued for the whole period. Later in the day another teacher was talking about it and said one of the kids at school had it on their phone. The student they said had it was in the room next door when the kids were hearing it in my room, so apparently it travels some."

I first heard about it when I read this article in the New York Times a couple of weeks ago, and apparently this was one way that the kids were communicating in school behind the scenes... By sending texts back and forth under the guise of this silent ring.

I couldn't help but wonder at what age does one's ears lose higher frequency perception, and could we tune all of the classic rock stations and Green Day and all the other crap that the kids call "punk" these days to the same frequency so I don't have to hear that also?

If they could do that I probably wouldn't feel so bad about growing old.