Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
A question I often hear these days is, is it harder to be deaf in todays society compared to what it was like 10-15 years ago? According to John Vinduer, It’s not a simple question to answer, if you ask they older generation a lot of them would say yes. With the huge amount of new technology we constantly get, it can be a little hard to learn all of this without someone to explain it. If you ask the younger people they are having an easier time. The reason is also due to new technology, and that a lot of today’s communication has moved to the social medias like twitter and facebook. The young people of today actually communicate a lot less with spoken words and a lot more with written text. John Vinduer from DTV Transtion and Brænde did a large poll amount 200 people with hearing problems, and it turned out that for a lot of deaf people it made it lot easier to feel like a part of the group. While it may be difficult for them to take part in a discussion on the street, they can take part in one on facebook on the same terms as anyone else. Because of this a lot of deaf people are using the social medias with a huge joy. Being able to take part in something on exactly the same terms as everybody else is a big blessing.
Another of the benefits with new technology is for the huge group of hearing impaired people. Due to new progress in technology things such as mobile phones and computers, have become a lot easier to use. But the big improvement is in hearing aids, they have over the last 10 years become much smaller, but also a lot more effective. New types has even made it possible for people who couldn’t use a normal hearing aid to be able to get some of their hearings back. One example of this is the cochlear implant. A cochlear implant is a new type of hearing aid, a complex piece of electronic that can help a deaf person, by providing a sense of sound. It’s still a long way from a useful solution, but it can for many improve their lives quite a bit. With futher development in this area, we can expect even bigger progress over the next few years.
New types of surgery have also been developped that can help improve hearing for a lot of people. But nothing really exciting are being researched at the moment in thi area. But as we gain a better understanding of the human mind and body, get better access to nano technology, it’s not unlikely that in 5-10 years we will begin to see some huge improvements in this field of work too. So if you are young and may have been told that there are nothing the doctors can about your hearing problem at the moment. There is a good chance that this will change sometime in the futher. You have a hope that the generations before you never had. It sure will be interesting to see how all of this turns out, and if all the money we are constantly putting into search finally begins to pay of.
Source
dtvtransition.org
Web: http://www.dtvtransition.org/
