Me and My Smartphone: A Love-Hate Relationship

For someone with moderate to severe hearing loss, the smartphone is both savior and nemesis. I can’t imagine life without a smartphone, but I can imagine many ways that it could be better.

First the savior aspect: I have at least two and sometimes three ways to communicate using text. The first is email. The second is texting. And the third, when it works, is captioning for telephone calls.

I can also pay for my coffee, go to my gym, download an airplane or theater ticket, take a picture. I can figure out what a 25 percent tip comes to. I can see in an instant what the weather is in Moscow or Kathmandu. I can go on the Internet, I can find out when the subway or bus is coming, I can tweet, Facebook, Instagram and check my stocks. I can read books and magazines, do brain acuity exercises, and I can even measure the decibels in an environment I suspect is too loud.

The one thing I can’t do on my phone is talk on it. Yes: The original and by now venerable function of a cellphone as a way for one person to communicate orally with another when not using a landline is the one place where the phone fails me. Read more…..

 

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