Perhaps we installed these by accident

The New York Times has a piece on a new invention in the UK designed to annoy and chase off a younger crowd. Says the article:

The device, called the Mosquito (”It’s small and annoying,” Mr. Stapleton said), emits a high-frequency pulsing sound that, he says, can be heard by most people younger than 20 and almost no one older than 30. The sound is designed to so irritate young people that after several minutes, they cannot stand it and go away.

The invention is just one of many designed to keep loitering teenagers away from storefronts and public spaces. Another option, described in the article as ”zit lamps,” ”drive teenagers away by casting a blue light onto their spotty skin, accentuating any whiteheads and other blemishes.” Lovely.

So, while the arts are hungry for younger audiences, others are happy to be rid of them. And don’t be too quick to assume they’ll be annoyed enough to wander toward the symphony hall. In an older article in The Economist on breaking up teenage gatherings (no longer on-line, but excerpted here), classical music, itself, was proving almost as effective as the Mosquito:

Six stops on the Tyneside Metro currently pump out Haydn and Mozart to deter vandals and loiterers, and the scheme has been so successful that it has spawned imitators. After a pilot at Elm Park station on the London Underground, classical music now fills 30 other stations on the network. The most effective deterrents, according to a spokesman for Transport for London, are anything sung by Pavarotti or written by Mozart.

Quite a bummer for the folks in the Mozart marketing department.