The Guardian’s G2 section today is a special on Deafness and it makes for really interesting reading.
They have 8 articles written from different perspectives and on different angles about being deaf. I first learnt of the difference between Deaf and deaf in Lisa Herrod’s article on A List Apart, which is excellent reading.
I had first hand experience when I worked at 3 as videophones led to unanticipated advantages for deaf users - suddenly they could video call and sign over the phone. They are about the only group for whom video-calling is actually useful, apart from people travelling and drunk users. I spoke to someone from the Deaf Institute, who pointed out that deaf users had huge take-up of texting as mobiles were useless to them apart from that.
So it’s great to read in the article that Vlogging is also taking off for similar reasons.
It is not surprising, then, that deaf people have seized upon the web 2.0 revolution, and more specifically vlogging. User-created sign language videos can be uploaded to public hosting sites such as YouTube or Sign-tube, the deaf community’s version, and then embedded on blogs, meaning that content is easily accessible to sign-language users; albeit a mere drop in an internet-sized ocean of English content.
I just think it’s nice when technology can make such a difference to someone’s life in a really positive way, whether it be in connecting people, improving their day or enriching their life in some way.
Head over to the Guardian now - there are some great articles on a deaf nightclub in Finland, a deaf comedian, and career case studies.
This post is tagged under: random thoughts
