You are so unfair.

Teenagers en masse easily induce fear. Lucy and I are about to become parents of teenagers for the second time in our lives. But what do you make of the Mosquito ?

The Mosquito™ ultrasonic teenage deterrent is the solution to the eternal problem of unwanted gatherings of youths and teenagers in shopping malls, around shops and anywhere else they are causing problems. The presence of these teenagers discourages genuine shoppers and customers’ from coming into your shop, affecting your turnover and profits. Anti social behavior has become the biggest threat to private property over the last decade and there has been no effective deterrent until now.

This device broadcasts an annoying high pitched noise that you can only hear if you're under 25. The more I think about this, the more it sucks.

1. A friend in the police service once described the problem of moving teenagers on as being like “wrestling a blancmange.” Since we haven’t quite started shooting them in the streets just for existing, they move somewhere else. In other words this device doesn’t solve the problem. It just shifts it elsewhere. I'm reminded of Mrs Thatcher’s ecological Cunning Plan to save the North Sea from raw sewage — build longer outfalls.
2. What about, say, babies? Unless they are particularly delinquent babies, why should they be subjected to potentially damaging sound pollution? And, in this nation of animal lovers, what about domestic cats and dogs? Let alone good teenagers.
   
3. What hypocritical loonery thinks that you can teach teenagers respect by treating them disrespectfully? Imagine local authorities were installing, say, electric fences that gave only the over 50's electric shocks to stop them jaywalking, or cattle prods to speed them up in cinema queues? What would we make of that? If some evil teenager developed a sinister device that filled our streets with annoying sounds targeted at old people... Well they have. It’s called disco music, and we ask them to turn it down. They observe how we ask them to turn it down, and that’s how they learn, for good or bad.

Are there alternatives to this device? Well, how about the rest of us behaving like grownups rather than stroppy teenagers? How about treating everyone else like human beings and, perhaps, even actually talking to them? That way we practice what we preach, treating others with the basic respect we expect from them. It’s not rocket science, is it?

Buzz Off (anti Mosquito) campaign here

Advice for teenagers: h/t Charles Overton & Tim Harper