How Does Technology Affect Deaf People

Technology is something that seems to bring people together, but in reality, can bring people farther away when technology not optimized for certain people. Various groups are left out of new technology, especially the deaf, hard of hearing, and elderly. These groups deserve technology just as much as the normal demographic. Technology is meant to bring people closer together not isolate them. However, despite the technology historically not been fully optimized for these groups, it has had some advances in the past years. Some advances include Facetime and text messaging for the deaf community and the ability to customize technology to accommodate the disabilities of the elderly.
Looking first at the deaf community, the phone was originally damaging as phones only utilized the use of hearing. When phones became prominent in homes, the entire community was left out, unable to communicate in a …show more content…
For a group of people that could use technology, most technology is geared towards younger audiences. While younger generations tend to utilize technology more, the elderly would be better if they had technology utilized for them. Some technologies are made to be used by the elderly, such as e-readers with the ability to increase word size. Other technologies are almost unusable for the elderly. Cell phones with small screens are almost impossible for the elderly to see and use as the younger generations do. While seeing the screen is a problem, understanding exactly what the phone can do is also a problem. For the older generations, phones are not intuitive. In fact, BBC states that, “according to the US Pew Internet research centre, 77% of older people would need someone to help walk them through the process of setting up a new device.” The older generation does not feel comfortable with technology, and the discomfort is mainly due to the fact that this is a brand new form of communication almost alien to