Can You Hear What Teens Can? The Mosquito Sound Hearing Test You Can Try on Your Smartphone!
I’m Ken Kuwako, the Science Trainer. Every day is an experiment.
How High Can You Hear? Discover the Surprising Limits of Human Hearing
You may think you’re hearing every sound around you—but what if some sounds have already slipped beyond the reach of your ears? This time, I used a smartphone app to test just how high a frequency I could actually hear. The results were more surprising than I expected and revealed just how different our ears can be.
The Range of Human Hearing
Humans are generally said to hear sounds between 20 and 20,000 hertz (Hz). Hertz is the unit used to measure frequency, or pitch. The higher the number, the higher the sound.
For reference, the highest note on a piano is around 4,000 Hz, while the buzzing of a mosquito is roughly 500–600 Hz.
But when I tested myself, I found that I could barely hear anything above about 15,000 Hz. So much for matching the textbook exactly!
A Simple Experiment Anyone Can Try
For this experiment, I used Narika’s Low-Frequency Oscillator CR-WEB. This handy online tool can generate sounds from 0 to 20,000 Hz and works right from a smartphone or computer.
In the video below, I used a tone generator app and gradually increased the frequency. You can follow along and see how far your own hearing reaches.
What Happened When I Tried It with Students?
As the pitch climbs higher and higher, the sound turns into a sharp, piercing tone that seems to ring deep inside your ears. Then, all at once, it vanishes.
That moment of sudden silence marks the limit of your hearing.
When I tried this activity with my students, some could still hear sounds around 17,000 Hz, while others lost the tone much earlier. The differences between individuals were surprisingly obvious. Almost nobody could hear all the way up to 20,000 Hz.
Why Do People Hear Differently?
One reason is age. Scientists have known for a long time that our ability to hear high-pitched sounds gradually declines as we get older. This age-related loss of hearing occurs because the tiny hair cells inside the ear—the cells responsible for detecting sound—tend to become damaged over time, especially those that respond to higher frequencies.
A famous example is the “Mosquito Tone” (around 17,000 Hz), which many teenagers can hear but many adults cannot.
Extended use of earphones at high volume is also believed to speed up the loss of high-frequency hearing, so it’s worth keeping an eye on your listening habits.
Reading in a textbook that “the human hearing range is 20–20,000 Hz” is one thing. Actually hearing a sound disappear and realizing, “Wait… I can’t hear it anymore!” is a completely different experience.
Hands-on moments like this make abstract concepts such as frequency feel real and memorable. In science education, experiences often turn facts into genuine understanding.
Why not try it yourself at home and discover the true limits of your own ears?
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