Did Texting inadvertently make the cell phone more usable for the deaf?
How can texting not make the cell phone more useful to deaf people? Even before phones could Web browse to me it seem logical that texting made the phone more of an aid to deaf people because they could use the phone to communicate without the need to hear whom they are conversing with. Before texting and Web browsing what real plus was there for a deaf person to have a cell phone?
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Probably none except for cell phone cameras.
Good point, especially with texting overtaking the use of phones as phones for so many people! The whole transition from cell phones to mobile computers is great for the deaf, even if that was not the intention.
Well, when cell phones were just phones I can’t see how someone who was deaf or profoundly hard of hearing would have been able to use one or have any reason to need one. Anymore than they would be able to use a regular phone at home, as opposed to needing to use a TTY/TTD phone. The deaf invented texting. :-)
Of course there was very little reason for the deaf to get a mobile phone before text messages were invented but as texting has been around since 1993 deaf people have been buying mobile phones so they could text for a long time.
many people of the Deaf community that I know swear by their blackberry nowadays :]
I suppose so, for some people.
Yeah, look at Weeds! Silas has a deaf girlfriend and they text a lot, and sometimes even when they’re together they would write out texts and just show each other. Vibrate mode helped even more, I’m sure!
I have a friend who’s deaf and he’s always had a mobile phone purely for sending and receiving texts. He says it’s transformed his life.
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