If you’re anything like me, the sound of Apple’s infamous ‘Radar’ alarm tone can induce a wave of panic.
It doesn’t even have to be your own ringtone that triggers this reaction—iPhone users worldwide often stick with Apple’s default alarm sound. For instance, consider the lady on the train who forgot to turn off one of her multiple alarms, letting it ring out for the entire carriage to hear.
But why is this sound so universally disliked? There are a few explanations…
Simply Psychology describes a concept known as a conditioned response, which is a learned, automatic, and involuntary reaction elicited by a previously neutral stimulus through classical conditioning.
In this context, the learned response is waking up to the sound of ‘Radar’ from your bedside table. Unless you’re one of the few who enjoy being woken up, this sound will likely trigger negative feelings as you associate it with interrupted sleep.
We can all probably agree that ‘Radar’ is far from a calming seaside noise, but such soothing sounds might not wake us effectively. We need something more jarring to ensure we wake up.
And ‘Radar’ fits that bill perfectly.
Tech expert and YouTuber Greg Wyatt Jr explained that the ringtone has a ‘short, sharp rapidly occurring tonal sound and a short decay time which is at a frequency of 2-5KHz’.
Due to this, the sound is very sensitive to the human ear and can be described as ‘shrill,’ akin to the scratching of glass or nails on a chalkboard.
If you’re looking for a more pleasant alarm tone that still gets the job done, Quiet Mark’s chief technical officer Toby Saville recommends Apple’s ‘Cosmic’ tone. It has ‘more mid-frequency (circa 1 kHz) content, is generally broadband in its frequency content (even frequency distribution), and has a soft, long decay time’.
Unless you work irregular shifts, your body clock is likely well-tuned, and you wake up and go to sleep around the same time each day and night.
For instance, if I need to be up by 7am, I usually start stirring in bed an hour beforehand, as my body anticipates the wake-up time. This makes the alarm less jarring. However, if your body clock is out of sync with your schedule, 7am might feel like 3am.
To address this, set up a consistent sleep schedule so your body becomes accustomed to waking up at the same time every day. This way, you won’t have to rely on the deafening sound of ‘Radar’ each morning to get out of bed.