In another blog, I wrote about the increasing use of digital technology and how Keen Guides is using it to create more integrated experience for people of all languages and communication modalities. We’re hopeful that it creates dialogue when everyone has access to the same information.

I think it’s important to create experiences for people in a manner that fosters collaboration rather than isolation. It makes me wonder, we  (deaf and hard of hearing) utilize technology in a lot of ways to help us communicate.  There’s closed captioning, instant messenging, TTYs, voice carry-overs (VCO), e-mail, you get the idea. In a lot of ways, those electronic sources of communications helps people who are deaf and hard of hearing collaborate with everyone else. However, do we run the risk of creating a more isolating experience, by relying more and more on these sources of electronic information exchange?

I think it’s important, too, to stop and realize how much we are relying on technology. I know that I need to spend more time meeting people for coffee, meals, or just to say “hello.” It’s so easy to get caught up. People don’t just walk up to people’s front doors with a plate of warm cookies and a gallon of cold milk in the other to strike up a conversation. Oh, how I long for that to be a reality again.

I think people who are deaf and hard of hearing are in a tricky spot, don’t you think!? Are we “extempt” from the need to put down our smartphones and shut down our computers?