How is your sense of television?

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I have always been able to tell if a television is on nearby. What I mean is, even if the sound is muted and there is no picture (as you get on some TVs if you look at an empty channel) I can sort of sense if it is on.

I mean, I can walk past a house whose windows are open, and sometimes tell if there is a TV on in that house, even when I cannot hear or see it.

Until recently, I thought everyone could do this useless trick. But it seems not.

Everyone I have asked about this (only about half a dozen it's true) did not know what I was talking about. They even doubted that I could do it myself. Then I showed them that I could (by leaving the room while they fiddled with the telly, and then I would come in and guess whether it was on or off correctly every time). Then they would try, and they couldn't do it.

So, I am asking YOU now, can you do what I can do?

― Eyeball Kicks (Eyeball Kicks), Monday, 13 June 2005 15:04 (twenty years ago)

Yes, it makes a very high pitched noise.

― walter kranz (walterkranz), Monday, 13 June 2005 15:08 (twenty years ago)

TV emits a very high-pitched whine - i can't hear it any more as way too old but when i wz small i could (also i wz kept awake by bats squeakin!! apparently asthmatic children often have a higher pitch awareness)

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 13 June 2005 15:09 (twenty years ago)

My sense of this comes and goes a bit, it applies to other electrical appliances too though. I can't properly relax in a room with a computer/stero system/TV etc in it, even on stand by. Hence I am not relaxed very often :(

― Archel (Archel), Monday, 13 June 2005 15:11 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, I can absolutely tell if our television is on when I walk into the house or out of my room.

― Jordan (Jordan), Monday, 13 June 2005 15:11 (twenty years ago)

Not as good as my sense of humor.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 13 June 2005 15:12 (twenty years ago)

yeah, I agree it's almost like 'feeling' it but scientifically you probably are 'hearing' the motor or radons* or whatever at a barely detectable frequency.

*may be made up

― tremendoid (tremendoid), Monday, 13 June 2005 15:12 (twenty years ago)

I can do this. I hate it, hate it, hate it when someone puts a stereo on and just turns the TV volume down. There's a feeling in the air when a TV is on.

― Anna (Anna), Monday, 13 June 2005 15:13 (twenty years ago)

http://www.bobgruen.com/files/asst/R.262%20TELEVISION.jpg
This Television is ON!

― mark grout (mark grout), Monday, 13 June 2005 15:15 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, serious answer: I hardly ever watch TV, but I had the TV on recently because I'd been watching a movie. It was on mute, and I had left the room to take a shower. When I got out of the shower, even from the other room, I was like, wait, what's that? Maybe it was more acute to me, tho, because it's not something I experience in my house that often.

When my band's first recording was mastered, the mastering guy listened to it and said, "Was there a TV on in the room you were recording?" We said, "Uh, yeah, one of us was playing video games, but it was on mute." He was like, "Never do that."

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 13 June 2005 15:17 (twenty years ago)

Yeah, it must be sound. I understood this already I think because sometimes you can get the same sensation at certain points on CDs, usually when there's a sample from TV.

xpost & what jaymc says about mastering guy is what i mean.

― Eyeball Kicks (Eyeball Kicks), Monday, 13 June 2005 15:18 (twenty years ago)

"i can tell from the way you play that someone in the audience wasn't listening properly"

― mark s (mark s), Monday, 13 June 2005 15:19 (twenty years ago)

Maybe mastering guy just meant you shouldn't be stoned?

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Monday, 13 June 2005 15:26 (twenty years ago)

Perhaps he could hear the clicks from the video game controller?

― Jordan (Jordan), Monday, 13 June 2005 15:27 (twenty years ago)

Mastering guy has worked with the Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev and gave us some weird homegrown psychotropic drugs to take with us, so I don't think he would've had a problem if we'd been stoned.

― jaymc (jaymc), Monday, 13 June 2005 15:41 (twenty years ago)

It's your lizard brain (or 'old-brain') that senses it. Didn't you know that's how the government controls us? The signal reacts with the corn syrup they sneak into all our food.

― django (django), Monday, 13 June 2005 16:58 (twenty years ago)

B...b...but ... the government ARE the lizards!

― caitlin (caitlin), Monday, 13 June 2005 16:59 (twenty years ago)

Maybe it's a bit like when you think of a song, then you turn the radio on and that very song is playing. I used to think that was weird, but then someone told me that if you have any fillings in your teeth, they pick up sound waves so you subconsciously know what's on the radio or if there's a TV on, p.s. I am very gullible.

― C J (C J), Monday, 13 June 2005 17:05 (twenty years ago)

Smilla's Sense of Snow, Pt. 2

― Rock Hardy (Rock Hardy), Monday, 13 June 2005 17:13 (twenty years ago)

B...b...but ... the government ARE the lizards!

On no not you too!

― django (django), Monday, 13 June 2005 17:29 (twenty years ago)

that "too" should have one 'o'. But technically the goverment is RUN by the lizards

― django (django), Monday, 13 June 2005 17:30 (twenty years ago)

or should it...?

― django (django), Monday, 13 June 2005 17:34 (twenty years ago)

it's too hot to think

― django (django), Monday, 13 June 2005 17:34 (twenty years ago)

I feel it

― RJG (RJG), Monday, 13 June 2005 17:35 (twenty years ago)

The TV in my Dad's house makes an unbearable whine and while I was living there I would moan if someone so much as left it on standby. Nobody else in the house believed me however.

― dog latin (dog latin), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 09:47 (twenty years ago)

So let's see, the unbearable whine stopped when you left home? Now, far be it from me to put two and two together but...

― Bifidus Digestivum (Dada), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 09:51 (twenty years ago)

It's definitely a noise - I have hearing issues and I can still hear it fine

― Markelby (Mark C), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 10:08 (twenty years ago)

When I had an old second hand TV (previous owner = heavy smoker) i used to be able to smell when it was on.

― splates (splates), Tuesday, 14 June 2005 10:34 (twenty years ago)

three years pass...

I don't have this gift any more. It hardly matters.

― Eyeball Kicks, Wednesday, 8 October 2008 00:18 (seventeen years ago)

still got it

― conrad, Wednesday, 8 October 2008 00:23 (seventeen years ago)

LCD screens don't make the same noise.

― El Tomboto, Wednesday, 8 October 2008 00:27 (seventeen years ago)

still got a normal telly

― conrad, Wednesday, 8 October 2008 00:27 (seventeen years ago)

yep I hear/feel it too even in another room. I can tune it out tho, like lots of other "white noise". Have you ever been in an office environment where it seems really quiet then suddenly the power goes off and you notice how REALLY quiet it gets, so the seeming quiet before was really pretty loud...

ack, terrible sentence, but you get the point.

― Wiggy Woo, Wednesday, 8 October 2008 00:29 (seventeen years ago)

my head feels like it decompresses when that happens

― Granny Dainger, Wednesday, 8 October 2008 00:48 (seventeen years ago)

I haven't paid attention to this in a long time, so I'm not sure if I can still do it. I remember trying to explain it to my dad when I was little and he didn't understand at all.

― circles, Wednesday, 8 October 2008 02:26 (seventeen years ago)

Yeah, it's all about CRTs; I can hear them, but not LCDs. Years of checking students have turned off monitors after watching films in the library honed it to monstrous levels.

― Sick Mouthy (Scik Mouthy), Wednesday, 8 October 2008 08:12 (seventeen years ago)

I don't have this gift any more. It hardly matters.

I remember trying to explain it to my dad when I was little and he didn't understand at all.

I think one's ability to hear high-pitched sounds gets gradually weaker as one grows older.

― Tuomas, Wednesday, 8 October 2008 10:32 (seventeen years ago)

Or, to put it more precisely, it's a scientific fact that this happens.

― Tuomas, Wednesday, 8 October 2008 10:33 (seventeen years ago)

I can't consciously hear CRTs, but I know when they are on. So perhaps I am unconsciously hearing them. As for LCDs, I don't know. Last year we changed our old CRT telly for an LCD one, but I haven't been around enough when it's been in use to notice. Maybe plasma screens would have the same high pitched effect as CRTs, anyone know?

Have you ever been in an office environment where it seems really quiet then suddenly the power goes off and you notice how REALLY quiet it gets, so the seeming quiet before was really pretty loud..

YES - I have all this sound proofing stuff and quiet fans and hard drives in aluminium boxes in the PC I use here, but when it's switched off there's this sudden "inburst" or implosion of sound.

― snoball, Wednesday, 8 October 2008 10:45 (seventeen years ago)

i didn't notice my computer's fan making a huge noise until i moved house - but then i used to live next to 3 lanes of traffic and now it's dead quiet when nothing's going on in the room.

― ILX Systern (ken c), Wednesday, 8 October 2008 11:16 (seventeen years ago)

re: television - well yeah i can tell when it's on cos there's sound and light coming out of it

― ILX Systern (ken c), Wednesday, 8 October 2008 11:17 (seventeen years ago)

Poltergeists tend to be coming out of the TV whether it's switched on or not...
http://www.best-horror-movies.com/image-files/poltergeist-hand-television.jpg

― snoball, Wednesday, 8 October 2008 11:47 (seventeen years ago)

true
http://rivene.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/the-ring-tv400.jpg

― ILX Systern (ken c), Wednesday, 8 October 2008 11:50 (seventeen years ago)

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