A few British companies are now commercializing the Mosquito ultrasonic teenage deterrent, an object designed to disperse groups of teenagers from areas where they are not wanted. Believe it or not, the object is legal and, according to one of the companies that sell it, “acclaimed by the police forces of many areas of the UK.” Another marketing blurb claims that this object is “the solution to the eternal bane of shopkeepers and Mall owners around the world, who are troubled by small crowds of anti-social teenagers who have nothing better to do than loiter outside their shops and stores deterring older customers who want to go into the shops to purchase goods.” This wonder thing is packaged in a die-cast alloy box in a vandal-proof casing, and works by emitting ultrasounds at a high frequency only audible to teenagers. Anti-social teenagers? Smart teenagers, rather. At least capable of turning an oppressive technology into a subversive tool for peer-to-peer communication. Even if the initial intention was that teenagers aware of this device would move away from the area, this remarkable social subgroup soon realized the communication possibilities of this technology: they sampled the sound –now called Teen Buzz- and turned it into a ring tone to be used over Bluetooth and text messaging to communicate with other teenagers at school without their teachers knowing -the oldsters can not possibly hear the phones ringing when they do. A true design lesson.
