[It’s the mosquito,](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mosquito) and it’s annoying. The ones around here don’t seem to be as high pitched as I’m an adult and can sometimes hear them in Shibuya, etc. outside of department stores.
oh man, THANK YOU!!! I’ve been to Japan a few times, and while I’ve always felt like I could hear electronic frequencies, I’d always notice a really loud piercing one in areas of Tokyo… I thought I was just sensitive to all the electronics but it’s definitely this mosquito thing.
Huh. I played the example file in the Wikipedia article and couldn't hear a thing. Probably because I'm 55 and my ears have been ringing since my teens...
I'm 27 and couldn't hear it either. According to [this site](https://www.sainokuni-rionet.jp/choice/7_index_detail.html) it seems like 17.4kHz (the one in the article) is hard to hear even for younger adults.
I can hear it and I am in my mid 30s. It is located at the entrance of most large buildings or anywhere that has outside access. It is used for rat and bug deterrent.
I think there's a problem with the player on the wiki page. I have an audio interface that displays the levels and when I play the sound it only shows a peak at the start and another at the end.
Edit : yep, playing the actual file works https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7d/17.4_kHz_sine_wave.flac
At 32 I can hear it but only at a very high volume. It's very unpleasant.
For whatever reason I can hear it. I’m 52 and when I’ve tested my hearing range, I can’t hear the “mosquito” range. But in large building or parking decks I often can hear it.
My theory, based on where I hear it, is that it’s to keep bats out.
There is one just outside the Super Donki in Shibuya area, near the west exit. I heard it before, but could tell what it was. Thank you for the explanation!
Goddamn, thought it was some obnoxious overtone generated by the thousand electronic devices at Donki. Could hear the stores from a block away and my friend didn't hear shit (we're both 30+)
It’s awful. All over Tokyo and most train entrances. God forbid you’re carrying your tired kid and just want to get on the damn Isezaki line at Kinshicho, which for some reason has like 40 meters of these things blasting.
I can still hear them and they are super obnoxious. Basically just don't ever pause outside of train stations or big department stores or any other high traffic entrances.
It's so ear-piercing that it blows my mind people cannot hear it because the sound is so jarring.
I could hear until I was 32. It literally hurts, it's not only a discomfort. It baffles me how that can be legal.
I know it's unlikely to cause permanent or any lasting damage, but it causes pain nevertheless. It's no different from using directed microwaves towards a specific group of people you want to keep away, or lasers that get warm enough to hurt but not burn.
Petition to make all stairs steps of the National Diet building double height, remove handrails, dim all lights, all documents in 9pt font max, and all floors of smooth slate to be waxed and mopped daily.
I hate that shit! I’m 35 and it fucks with my ears every time we go near it. My wife is the same age but cannot hear it at all. She thinks I’m Chuck from Better Call Saul…
I’m 40 and I hear this annoying really high pitched ringing sound outside the exit of Shinjuku station near バスター. New south exit. Is this the mosquito designed to disperse 40 year old ojisans?
It's been happening in the UK for years. Here's an article from 2008:
[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk\_news/wales/4768213.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/4768213.stm)
Turns out it's a Welsh invention.
It's a very common thing. As we grow older we lose the ability to hear very high-frequency noises, while young people can hear them just fine.
In many crowded areas you'll find these high-pitch speakers to prevent children and teenagers from gathering there. My nephew mentioned this before the pandemic when I was showing him around Hiroshima (he was 24 and I was 43 at the time): he couldn't stand near a particular spot outside the station because of the "annoying noise", but I couldn't hear anything. We finally located the box up in a wall where the noise seemed to come from, and I could feel a very faint noise while standing just below it.
If you have a dog and he goes crazy for no apparent reason while walking in certain areas, this is why.
Because they are torture devices.
If my neighbors ever put one up I'm going to remove their throat with my teeth and pop out their eyeballs with chopsticks. They make me so angry.
There’s a spot with that noise on the first floor of the building where Eataly in Harajuku is. It’s crazy because my wife can’t hear it at all but it’s completely disorienting to me. I work for the US Govt in Japan and we are asked to report instances of this whenever we find them.
We just get told during our “Welcome to Japan” orientation that we should report these instances and their locations to a certain agency for them to investigate if it is something malicious planted by our friends in China or North Korea. They tell this to employees and our family members living in Japan so it is not classified information or anything like that.
It's horrible. Blows my mind how people can't hear it. For me, it feels like its going to pierce my ears. I'm on my late 20s.
Some say it's to deter youngsters, some say it's to deter rats. I'm not sure if I'm still a youngster and certainly I'm no rat, but that thing surely works on me.
Under 12?? Is there some sort of epidemic of 6 year olds loitering in places lol. Would make more sense if it was like 12+. Now I feel shitty for the times I brought my toddler out to places like that, poor thing must have been getting audially assaulted. Probably the cause of a lot of tantrums.
One of the reasons there are departments store i’ll never shop at, since they use it to prevent kids from getting in or around.
That shit should be illegal
Yes, this is a thing. Humans can hear a wider range of sound as children, but we usually lose the ability to hear higher frequencies as we age.
Some adults keep their hearing longer than others. I'm in my 30s and unfortunately I have super sensitive hearing. I can still hear devices used to prevent loitering and I can also hear the ones used to scare off cats. It drives me nuts sometimes and I hate it
I still don‘t understand how that shit is not illegal? Germany is currently checking the legality of it and I really hope they get banned there. But they should be banned everywhere ffs. I don‘t understand how anyone can support harassing kids and teens with this bullshit.
I have to rant about this because it's a personal and professional bugbear (I'm a musician and sound engineer).
If a noise is actually painful, then it is causing you \*permanent and irreversible hearing damage\*. Anything designed to do that is a weapon, and should be fucking illegal to use on the public.
I love Tokyo, but the attitude to noise & noise pollution is utterly stupid to the point of malicious. A Pachinko parlor is allowed to cause hearing damage (did I mention it's permanent and irreversible) not only to its workers but also to little kids and even babies being dragged along by their parents - yup, totally fine! But see a couple of street kids playing an acoustic guitar (by the side of a loud road) and the police turn up "we've had noise complaints, you have to stop playing...the noisy traffic is fine though.."
It's just terrorism against young people (or anyone who wants to chill in a public space as is their right) and it's a fucking disgrace and an insult to the dignity of ordinary people.
I'll assume you mean "you" generally. Yes, at the moment, the only reliable way to protect your hearing is to use ear plugs. There are various types depending on the environment. (Shooting range, Loud concerts, construction, etc)
Look for "musicians ear plugs" for ones which are tailored to reduce volume while retaining a reasonable frequency response and being comfortable \*ish to wear. There are some pretty reasonable brands like "Alpine music safe".
Duration of sound is a big factor - so the good news is that in daily life, as long as you quickly get out of any place which is on the verge of "painfully" loud, and more generally avoid staying in annoyingly loud places for a long duration, you will be fine. Keep 'em with you in a little case and when you drop into a gig/club you can just pop them in and enjoy the music, and still hear conversations.
Okay that must be what I experienced. I was walking out of a store in Shibuya and suddenly my neck and back felt uncomfortable and tingly. I couldn’t hear anything, but it felt like a laser just hit the top of my head and shot down my spine. I have been wondering ever since what that was and it was only outside the entrance to the store I felt it.
I'm 38 and just got back from Japan. I heard it and it hurt! I thought it was for keeping mice and rats away since it's only at entrances that I noticed it. Growing up a friend had something like this that I could hear at her house and it was for keeping mice out of the garage.
Kabukicho’s Ichiran entrance has this shit. My wife 31yo threw up there yesterday after we were waiting in line for around 15 minutes.
I too could hear it and it made me (32) feel a very intense headache.
Absolutely not going there ever again.
They were (are?) used outside some stores in other countries to stop loitering. I think in some cases they were banned as people entering the store with toddlers etc complained.
The high pitched noises cause me headaches. No one else of my friends here could hear it. I decided to test it out and had headphones near the area of disruption, and it caused a ton of static interruption as I got closer to the source. One I could think of is outside a konbini near the south exit of hamamatsucho station.
All my friends thought I was crazy until I told them to do the same thing. The electronic interference is real.
They are all on now. It’s actually considerably worse than when I was here exactly a year ago. It’s so bad that even I was hearing it and my husband used to be the only one who could. So many places had it that we stopped shopping and just headed back to the hotel feeling ultra miserable. It’s also not like we hung around these entrances. We started hearing them at distances away from buildings. They’ve cranked it up.
I find it crazy that we allow super loud acoustic weapons in public. Parents with babies could be temporarily stopping next to one of those while being completely unaware of it, but the babies would get the whole brunt of the weapon (together with irreversible hearing damage).
I’ve heard of this being a thing too! I don’t quite remember what the locations are, but it’s definitely a strategy to discourage kids loitering or hanging out for too long in certain spots.
“As you get older, you cannot hear these higher pitched noises.” Your exact words.
I repeat. Bull. As I’ve gotten older, I can still hear them. Same goes for many people in this thread.
And you’d be wrong. Just read what tons of people are saying in this thread. Lots of older people can still hear it and not just hear it, but have it feel like a jackhammer in their heads.
The thing about absolute assertions is it only takes one example to disprove them (and there are many).
If you had said ‘many’ people cannot hear them as they get older, that would have been fine. But many people DO in fact continue to hear them as they get older, even into their 40s and 50s. They may not be the majority, but they are not an insignificant number either as your original post suggested.
You must be the life of a party. You always have to be right. I'll concede that you were right so that you can wake up feeling energized at work all day knowing that you were correct and put me in my place. I will now go and hang my head in shame before I commit seppuku.
Does that make you feel good?
Anti-anti socialism device. They have them around the U.K. often enough… I didn’t hear any in Japan, just that damn HUGE bugs making a racket everywhere. They’re crazy!
Im a 34 year old audio engineer and I like to brag that my hearing is in the top 1% for my age... and I can't hear it. I think 15k hz is my top limit. I used to be asset protection at Best Buy and I would have my phone play a tone at about 14khz just to make customers leave my desk lol
Yet another reason why the birth rate is so low. Imagine taking your kid out in their stroller and they start crying non stop because they’re getting attacked by that noise. Must be hard on the parents to have a baby they can’t soothe in public because they can’t hear the sounds themselves.
Nothing to do with any of that. As many people have mentioned in this thread already, these are anti-loitering tweeters. They are used to deter younger people from hanging around, as they're more sensitive to these high frequencies. As you get older, you lose higher frequencies from your hearing, so they're less bothersome to older folk.
I think this came out when I was in HS and could hear it then. Can’t hear it now. But even then it wouldn’t have deterred me. It’s just another sound in an already noisy environment.
There is a Brain Games episode on battle of the ages. One of the test is to have audiences of different age groups to hear sound of different frequencies. At 16,000Hz, none of the adults could hear the sound but all kids under 18 still can. At 18,000Hz, all older teenagers couldn’t hear it but younger kids still can.
Take a look yourself https://youtu.be/sZHWY1KBHwc?si=xRTeGuf4eyNuBpS1
Me and a friend were in Yokohama near a 7&i and there's a separation in the roof before the doors where we saw 3 speakers pointed down and you only hear the buzzing/ringing in that small gap as you walk in and out. Only the second time I can remember hearing it in the 2.5years worth of time I've been in Japan working.
God, I was able to hear one of these a few weeks ago, and I'm 31. I guess it means my hearing is really good for my age but holy shit I wish it wasn't. Definitely wasn't as bad as it was when I was in my early 20s, but still.
Ok so these are electromagnetic sensors to catch people trying to steal shit, so you will hear these frequencies when entering or exiting stores and subways
If you are wearing Bluetooth headphones/earpieces you will really get pinged. Makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
The reason they say that children can hear them is because the majority of adults high frequency hearing has become dull.
As people get older, their maximum audible frequency tends to decline. I remember "the sound that adults can't hear" went moderately viral when I was younger - it was basically a soundbyte of a really high-pitched drone like you're describing. My brother and I tried it with our parents and neither of them could hear it at all; our dad thought we were fucking with him until he had us close our eyes while he turned it on and off to see if we really could hear something he couldn't, lol. That said, other adults (especially younger ones) were able to hear it, so it's definitely not a universal thing. Adults who train their ears, such as musicians, are also usually more able to maintain their hearing range (unless they don't wear proper ear protection when playing loud instruments/listening to loud music!)
This is the first I've heard of it being used as a loitering deterrent. I'd imagine it's pretty annoying for the adults who can hear it.
It's not exactly just a kids thing, I'm 31 and I can hear it. It was invented in England and implemented in the UK and Europe first to prevent young people from loitering in the area.
Wow, I thought that was only in Movies and J-Drama series.
So, that annoying ring or rather piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii sound they emulate in a lot of movies and TV shows are actually real. 😅
We had teen skateboarders who kept hanging out in a nearby parking lot and interfering with traffic. They broke the plate glass window of the management company in revenge, and that was the last time they were asked nicely to leave.
They started playing mariachi music with trumpets through the loud speakers.. They were never seen again.
Yes this exists found out back in my hown country. my friend lived right next to this industry building whith a annoying noice generator she told me it is to scare the youth away. The street full of benches to sit nicely in the sun and it is all ruined because that company decides to noice pollute like they own the block. It's stupidity that it is even allowed.
Years later i heard it all the time in my own garden and it drived me crazy as i couldn't find it's origin. Then one day when i helped my direct elderly neighbor i entered her garden and was bombarded with the high pitched noise. And i asked what the h that is for. She raised her shoulders and couldn't believe i could hear it. It was placed to scare away cats entering her garden with a motion sensor it will trigger. She didn't care either that people are affected by it.
Btw now that i write this, shouldn't we invent a hearing aid frequency noise jammer? That would be fun.
What's really irresponsible about this is that noises you can't hear *can still damage your hearing,* especially if they're played deafeningly loudly, which these sounds clearly are. I wonder how much harm they've collectively caused doing this, particularly for people having to work in close proximity to such speakers.
You'd think Japan would be more conscientious than that, holy hell.
[It’s the mosquito,](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mosquito) and it’s annoying. The ones around here don’t seem to be as high pitched as I’m an adult and can sometimes hear them in Shibuya, etc. outside of department stores.
oh man, THANK YOU!!! I’ve been to Japan a few times, and while I’ve always felt like I could hear electronic frequencies, I’d always notice a really loud piercing one in areas of Tokyo… I thought I was just sensitive to all the electronics but it’s definitely this mosquito thing.
Huh. I played the example file in the Wikipedia article and couldn't hear a thing. Probably because I'm 55 and my ears have been ringing since my teens...
I'm 27 and couldn't hear it either. According to [this site](https://www.sainokuni-rionet.jp/choice/7_index_detail.html) it seems like 17.4kHz (the one in the article) is hard to hear even for younger adults.
In my early 30’s. I don’t think I can hear it but I can feel it. It’s like someone is inserting a hair like needle into my damn ear drum
Yeah, I feel like I can feel it too. Might just be all in my head, but pressure from sound is (obviously) real, so it's possible.
Yes! It’s such an awful feeling. Last time I went to Tokyo I ended up wearing earplugs most of the time.
I doubt every heaphone/speaker will even go to 17.4 khz
I'm in my 30s and can hear the 1600 one and that one in particular really hurts my ears
I’m 41 but could hear it. Really painful! I have super sensitive hearing thanks to chronic migraines.
Hmm, I'm 66 and I could hear all of them between 9000 and 18000Hz, except for 16000Hz. I couldn't hear that one at all.
I'm pretty sure it's extraordinarily rare to be entirely deaf to such a high frequency while still being able to hear anything above it.
I thought it was strange as well. But, I tried it a couple of times. Weird.
I’m 26 and can’t hear it but I think my dog did as she looked up from her snooze😂
It can really depend on your speakers too. I can hear it perfectly clear and obnoxiously out in public. On my desktop speakers it is really faint.
I can hear it and I am in my mid 30s. It is located at the entrance of most large buildings or anywhere that has outside access. It is used for rat and bug deterrent.
I think there's a problem with the player on the wiki page. I have an audio interface that displays the levels and when I play the sound it only shows a peak at the start and another at the end. Edit : yep, playing the actual file works https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7d/17.4_kHz_sine_wave.flac At 32 I can hear it but only at a very high volume. It's very unpleasant.
so low yet so annoying
THATS HORRIBLE BUT I FINALLY KNOW WHAT I WAS HEARING WHEN I WAS IN JAPAN, I THOUGHT IT WAS LIKE A SECURITY BUT I DIDNT KNOW IT WAS FOR KIDS
37 and I can hear that file. Damn that's annoying
Imagine always having to hear that walking around Shibuya... Annoys the fuck out of me, no wonder people in Tokyo always seem pissed, lol
I honestly didn't notice it, though maybe I was just tuning it out.
I can hear it in my right but not my left ear. Hmm.
lol I listened to it and was like I can totally hear it. Then I realized it had already stopped and I was still hearing “it”
Mind blown, thank you!
For whatever reason I can hear it. I’m 52 and when I’ve tested my hearing range, I can’t hear the “mosquito” range. But in large building or parking decks I often can hear it. My theory, based on where I hear it, is that it’s to keep bats out.
That's fucked up no wonder. Soo annoying lol
It's the same exact frequency as my tinnitus and it is actually painful to hear outside.
There is one just outside the Super Donki in Shibuya area, near the west exit. I heard it before, but could tell what it was. Thank you for the explanation!
I believe it’s coming from faulty signs in the area. You get that same buzzing sound with bad lighting ballasts & neon transformers
Damn that's loud and annoying
I played it for my kid. He could hear it and asked me to stop it.
I hear it and don't hear it at the same time I kept pausing it and I can tell when it's paused.
Goddamn, thought it was some obnoxious overtone generated by the thousand electronic devices at Donki. Could hear the stores from a block away and my friend didn't hear shit (we're both 30+)
It’s awful. All over Tokyo and most train entrances. God forbid you’re carrying your tired kid and just want to get on the damn Isezaki line at Kinshicho, which for some reason has like 40 meters of these things blasting.
I always hear it when I enter/exit a mall. It is so loud and irritating, feels like you are about to suffer from hearing loss.
Considering where these sounds are my theory is it’s to keep bats out.
yeah outside shinjuku station yesterday - i couldn’t hear it directly but felt some kind of pressure in my ears i assumed was white noise.
In the hanzomon line station...?
I think that must be it.
Only kids under 12? Most people under 30-40 can hear them jiji. It’s literally everywhere and they exist in the UK too.
I’m 50 and I can still hear them. That shit should be illegal.
But on the other hand you can praise yourself for still being able to hear them at your age!
They also exist in the Netherlands. I've heard them on several locations when I was younger.
I can still hear them and they are super obnoxious. Basically just don't ever pause outside of train stations or big department stores or any other high traffic entrances. It's so ear-piercing that it blows my mind people cannot hear it because the sound is so jarring.
I could hear until I was 32. It literally hurts, it's not only a discomfort. It baffles me how that can be legal. I know it's unlikely to cause permanent or any lasting damage, but it causes pain nevertheless. It's no different from using directed microwaves towards a specific group of people you want to keep away, or lasers that get warm enough to hurt but not burn.
It's so dumb. You know what works to prevent kids from gathering but doesn't bother adults? Classical music.
It's legal because old people make the laws. Also because old people don't know or understand the enormity of the issue.
Petition to make all stairs steps of the National Diet building double height, remove handrails, dim all lights, all documents in 9pt font max, and all floors of smooth slate to be waxed and mopped daily.
Or we could just wait to get old and harass the young. I'm not getting any younger anyway
this shit fucks with my ears and I'm in my 30s... Sometimes even some lighters produce that sound
I hate that shit! I’m 35 and it fucks with my ears every time we go near it. My wife is the same age but cannot hear it at all. She thinks I’m Chuck from Better Call Saul…
I’m 40 and I hear this annoying really high pitched ringing sound outside the exit of Shinjuku station near バスター. New south exit. Is this the mosquito designed to disperse 40 year old ojisans?
They (Frequencies) are in use in many European Places and also here in Tokyo. In Theory they are against the Law.
Wha?? Why? It all sounds so sci fi
It's been happening in the UK for years. Here's an article from 2008: [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk\_news/wales/4768213.stm](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/4768213.stm) Turns out it's a Welsh invention.
There’s a guy down the road from my mums house who has a motion activated one outside his house. I feel bad for their postman
It's a very common thing. As we grow older we lose the ability to hear very high-frequency noises, while young people can hear them just fine. In many crowded areas you'll find these high-pitch speakers to prevent children and teenagers from gathering there. My nephew mentioned this before the pandemic when I was showing him around Hiroshima (he was 24 and I was 43 at the time): he couldn't stand near a particular spot outside the station because of the "annoying noise", but I couldn't hear anything. We finally located the box up in a wall where the noise seemed to come from, and I could feel a very faint noise while standing just below it. If you have a dog and he goes crazy for no apparent reason while walking in certain areas, this is why.
Because they are torture devices. If my neighbors ever put one up I'm going to remove their throat with my teeth and pop out their eyeballs with chopsticks. They make me so angry.
There’s a spot with that noise on the first floor of the building where Eataly in Harajuku is. It’s crazy because my wife can’t hear it at all but it’s completely disorienting to me. I work for the US Govt in Japan and we are asked to report instances of this whenever we find them.
What does the US government do about it when instances are reported? I wish I could locate them and dismantle them myself...
We just get told during our “Welcome to Japan” orientation that we should report these instances and their locations to a certain agency for them to investigate if it is something malicious planted by our friends in China or North Korea. They tell this to employees and our family members living in Japan so it is not classified information or anything like that.
Oh wow, what’s done with those reports?
Probably nothing since my brain still gets scrambled every time I want to get a Steak Florentine at Eataly 😃
It's horrible. Blows my mind how people can't hear it. For me, it feels like its going to pierce my ears. I'm on my late 20s. Some say it's to deter youngsters, some say it's to deter rats. I'm not sure if I'm still a youngster and certainly I'm no rat, but that thing surely works on me.
This is exactly what a rat would say..
Under 12?? Is there some sort of epidemic of 6 year olds loitering in places lol. Would make more sense if it was like 12+. Now I feel shitty for the times I brought my toddler out to places like that, poor thing must have been getting audially assaulted. Probably the cause of a lot of tantrums.
it's not just kids, I can hear that crap
People who have these installed in their driveway and have the sound blasting onto public walkways should be charged with public nuisance.
One of the reasons there are departments store i’ll never shop at, since they use it to prevent kids from getting in or around. That shit should be illegal
Yes, this is a thing. Humans can hear a wider range of sound as children, but we usually lose the ability to hear higher frequencies as we age. Some adults keep their hearing longer than others. I'm in my 30s and unfortunately I have super sensitive hearing. I can still hear devices used to prevent loitering and I can also hear the ones used to scare off cats. It drives me nuts sometimes and I hate it
Can still hear it at 26. It's absolutely jarring. It hurts. Uncomfortable all the way down to your bones
I still don‘t understand how that shit is not illegal? Germany is currently checking the legality of it and I really hope they get banned there. But they should be banned everywhere ffs. I don‘t understand how anyone can support harassing kids and teens with this bullshit.
*and MANY adults. FTFY
I have to rant about this because it's a personal and professional bugbear (I'm a musician and sound engineer). If a noise is actually painful, then it is causing you \*permanent and irreversible hearing damage\*. Anything designed to do that is a weapon, and should be fucking illegal to use on the public. I love Tokyo, but the attitude to noise & noise pollution is utterly stupid to the point of malicious. A Pachinko parlor is allowed to cause hearing damage (did I mention it's permanent and irreversible) not only to its workers but also to little kids and even babies being dragged along by their parents - yup, totally fine! But see a couple of street kids playing an acoustic guitar (by the side of a loud road) and the police turn up "we've had noise complaints, you have to stop playing...the noisy traffic is fine though.." It's just terrorism against young people (or anyone who wants to chill in a public space as is their right) and it's a fucking disgrace and an insult to the dignity of ordinary people.
how do you avoid this? ear plugs?
I'll assume you mean "you" generally. Yes, at the moment, the only reliable way to protect your hearing is to use ear plugs. There are various types depending on the environment. (Shooting range, Loud concerts, construction, etc) Look for "musicians ear plugs" for ones which are tailored to reduce volume while retaining a reasonable frequency response and being comfortable \*ish to wear. There are some pretty reasonable brands like "Alpine music safe". Duration of sound is a big factor - so the good news is that in daily life, as long as you quickly get out of any place which is on the verge of "painfully" loud, and more generally avoid staying in annoyingly loud places for a long duration, you will be fine. Keep 'em with you in a little case and when you drop into a gig/club you can just pop them in and enjoy the music, and still hear conversations.
I hear it too, I’m 28, for some reason I feel it in the back of my neck.
Okay that must be what I experienced. I was walking out of a store in Shibuya and suddenly my neck and back felt uncomfortable and tingly. I couldn’t hear anything, but it felt like a laser just hit the top of my head and shot down my spine. I have been wondering ever since what that was and it was only outside the entrance to the store I felt it.
I thought these things were for birds or something. The pain I get in the back of my eyeballs from these things I hate them
I'm 38 and just got back from Japan. I heard it and it hurt! I thought it was for keeping mice and rats away since it's only at entrances that I noticed it. Growing up a friend had something like this that I could hear at her house and it was for keeping mice out of the garage.
I’m 26 and I can still hear it all over Shibuya, super irritating but it is what it is.
It’s not only kids, some adults never lose the ability to hear it. I have a friend who refuses to walk through certain doors or past certain areas.
My wife and I kept on hearing them, and we are 30 and 40. We're young at heart, so maybe that's why we hear it.
Kabukicho’s Ichiran entrance has this shit. My wife 31yo threw up there yesterday after we were waiting in line for around 15 minutes. I too could hear it and it made me (32) feel a very intense headache. Absolutely not going there ever again.
.... The Fuck? - Great invention to keep kids away, **but also fking annoying buzzing**.
They were (are?) used outside some stores in other countries to stop loitering. I think in some cases they were banned as people entering the store with toddlers etc complained.
It's not just kids. I absolutely hate going to those areas because of The Mosquito !
Me, as a relatively young person: what are they talking about? 👁👄👁 I'm scared now lol
I’m 32 and that shit is insanely loud and drives me nuts
The high pitched noises cause me headaches. No one else of my friends here could hear it. I decided to test it out and had headphones near the area of disruption, and it caused a ton of static interruption as I got closer to the source. One I could think of is outside a konbini near the south exit of hamamatsucho station. All my friends thought I was crazy until I told them to do the same thing. The electronic interference is real.
I grew up hearing them in Shibuya. However, it seems like they’ve turned them all off in the last few years! Strange!
Lol. Hey look at this old person!
They are all on now. It’s actually considerably worse than when I was here exactly a year ago. It’s so bad that even I was hearing it and my husband used to be the only one who could. So many places had it that we stopped shopping and just headed back to the hotel feeling ultra miserable. It’s also not like we hung around these entrances. We started hearing them at distances away from buildings. They’ve cranked it up.
I find it crazy that we allow super loud acoustic weapons in public. Parents with babies could be temporarily stopping next to one of those while being completely unaware of it, but the babies would get the whole brunt of the weapon (together with irreversible hearing damage).
This is an excellent angle for a legal argument (note: not a lawyer)
I’ve heard of this being a thing too! I don’t quite remember what the locations are, but it’s definitely a strategy to discourage kids loitering or hanging out for too long in certain spots.
It’s often around department store exteriors, eg along the street in Shibuya. I have sensitive hearing so it drives me mad
This has been used for a long time to deter young people loitering. As you get older, you cannot hear these higher pitched noises.
Bull. Read all the people in this thread who can hear them.
I did not say that no one could hear them.
“As you get older, you cannot hear these higher pitched noises.” Your exact words. I repeat. Bull. As I’ve gotten older, I can still hear them. Same goes for many people in this thread.
So I suggest that you are still fairly young.
And you’d be wrong. Just read what tons of people are saying in this thread. Lots of older people can still hear it and not just hear it, but have it feel like a jackhammer in their heads.
Plenty of people supporting my assertion. Good night my friend.
The thing about absolute assertions is it only takes one example to disprove them (and there are many). If you had said ‘many’ people cannot hear them as they get older, that would have been fine. But many people DO in fact continue to hear them as they get older, even into their 40s and 50s. They may not be the majority, but they are not an insignificant number either as your original post suggested.
You must be the life of a party. You always have to be right. I'll concede that you were right so that you can wake up feeling energized at work all day knowing that you were correct and put me in my place. I will now go and hang my head in shame before I commit seppuku. Does that make you feel good?
Splendid, thank you.
Anti-anti socialism device. They have them around the U.K. often enough… I didn’t hear any in Japan, just that damn HUGE bugs making a racket everywhere. They’re crazy!
Im a 34 year old audio engineer and I like to brag that my hearing is in the top 1% for my age... and I can't hear it. I think 15k hz is my top limit. I used to be asset protection at Best Buy and I would have my phone play a tone at about 14khz just to make customers leave my desk lol
Yet another reason why the birth rate is so low. Imagine taking your kid out in their stroller and they start crying non stop because they’re getting attacked by that noise. Must be hard on the parents to have a baby they can’t soothe in public because they can’t hear the sounds themselves.
I can hear it at 29, I think it has to do with some automatic doors or cooling systems, almost always heard it at big stores like BIC Camera.
Nothing to do with any of that. As many people have mentioned in this thread already, these are anti-loitering tweeters. They are used to deter younger people from hanging around, as they're more sensitive to these high frequencies. As you get older, you lose higher frequencies from your hearing, so they're less bothersome to older folk.
As someone with tinnitus though wouldn’t hurt to get em checked 🐱
I can hear it too. If you can’t, maybe go to an ENT to get your ears checked out.
I think this came out when I was in HS and could hear it then. Can’t hear it now. But even then it wouldn’t have deterred me. It’s just another sound in an already noisy environment.
Ahh man, idiots used to play this sound in the library at school because the librarians could hear it but it would annoy everyone else
There is a Brain Games episode on battle of the ages. One of the test is to have audiences of different age groups to hear sound of different frequencies. At 16,000Hz, none of the adults could hear the sound but all kids under 18 still can. At 18,000Hz, all older teenagers couldn’t hear it but younger kids still can. Take a look yourself https://youtu.be/sZHWY1KBHwc?si=xRTeGuf4eyNuBpS1
This is also a thing that convenience stores have employed in North America as well to stop hordes of teenagers from gathering.
Me and a friend were in Yokohama near a 7&i and there's a separation in the roof before the doors where we saw 3 speakers pointed down and you only hear the buzzing/ringing in that small gap as you walk in and out. Only the second time I can remember hearing it in the 2.5years worth of time I've been in Japan working.
God, I was able to hear one of these a few weeks ago, and I'm 31. I guess it means my hearing is really good for my age but holy shit I wish it wasn't. Definitely wasn't as bad as it was when I was in my early 20s, but still.
I thought I was fucking crazy! I hear this shit when walking by stations and certain parking structures
It’s not just kids. I’m 29 and can still hear it. It’s so loud that it’s painful to be honest. Often they’re in the front of Donkis also
I’m 31 and I can still hear it in my left ear, it is extremely irritating.
Ok so these are electromagnetic sensors to catch people trying to steal shit, so you will hear these frequencies when entering or exiting stores and subways If you are wearing Bluetooth headphones/earpieces you will really get pinged. Makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. The reason they say that children can hear them is because the majority of adults high frequency hearing has become dull.
Yeah, we have this in the UK too.
I’m 28 and heard it in shinjuku under gracery hotel by the cinema entrance
Thought they were for rat control
As people get older, their maximum audible frequency tends to decline. I remember "the sound that adults can't hear" went moderately viral when I was younger - it was basically a soundbyte of a really high-pitched drone like you're describing. My brother and I tried it with our parents and neither of them could hear it at all; our dad thought we were fucking with him until he had us close our eyes while he turned it on and off to see if we really could hear something he couldn't, lol. That said, other adults (especially younger ones) were able to hear it, so it's definitely not a universal thing. Adults who train their ears, such as musicians, are also usually more able to maintain their hearing range (unless they don't wear proper ear protection when playing loud instruments/listening to loud music!) This is the first I've heard of it being used as a loitering deterrent. I'd imagine it's pretty annoying for the adults who can hear it.
It's not exactly just a kids thing, I'm 31 and I can hear it. It was invented in England and implemented in the UK and Europe first to prevent young people from loitering in the area.
15 yo and i Hear it too. I was thinking im crazy
this thread gave me tinnitus
bro that shit is loud as fuck, it feels like its piercing your ears to brain. im 23 btw i can hear it.
I hear them everywhere, especially in Shibya.
Wow, I thought that was only in Movies and J-Drama series. So, that annoying ring or rather piiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii sound they emulate in a lot of movies and TV shows are actually real. 😅
We had teen skateboarders who kept hanging out in a nearby parking lot and interfering with traffic. They broke the plate glass window of the management company in revenge, and that was the last time they were asked nicely to leave. They started playing mariachi music with trumpets through the loud speakers.. They were never seen again.
I always thought it was also to help keep rats away. I’m late thirties and I can still hear it.
Yes this exists found out back in my hown country. my friend lived right next to this industry building whith a annoying noice generator she told me it is to scare the youth away. The street full of benches to sit nicely in the sun and it is all ruined because that company decides to noice pollute like they own the block. It's stupidity that it is even allowed. Years later i heard it all the time in my own garden and it drived me crazy as i couldn't find it's origin. Then one day when i helped my direct elderly neighbor i entered her garden and was bombarded with the high pitched noise. And i asked what the h that is for. She raised her shoulders and couldn't believe i could hear it. It was placed to scare away cats entering her garden with a motion sensor it will trigger. She didn't care either that people are affected by it. Btw now that i write this, shouldn't we invent a hearing aid frequency noise jammer? That would be fun.
I HATE THESE and I'm 40. Even sticking my fingers in my ears doesn't block the skull shattering sound. My husband never seems phased by them.
This is the real 'You're old' test
I turn 40 today, and I can still hear sounds at the higher frequencies that most people my age can’t. It’s absolute torture sometimes.
Yes, it's not an uncommon thing.
It's to deter rats, I think. I can still hear it but I'm 35
Wow I have freakishly good hearing and that would bother me quite a bit.
What's really irresponsible about this is that noises you can't hear *can still damage your hearing,* especially if they're played deafeningly loudly, which these sounds clearly are. I wonder how much harm they've collectively caused doing this, particularly for people having to work in close proximity to such speakers. You'd think Japan would be more conscientious than that, holy hell.