A little over a year ago, I was officially diagnosed with hearing loss. After much research, and a lot of talks with various specialists, I’ve come to accept that at this point in time, hearing aids are not really the right choice for me. Long story, short version: they’re expensive, not covered by insurance, ugly, and generally not likely to correct my type of loss to an acceptable level.
In other words, lots of negatives, for minimal return. Ummm… no thanks. So, what are my other options here?
Adaptive technology to the rescue, it seems. Take movies for example…
At home, if I want to understand all the dialog in the movie, I simply drive everyone else in the room nuts by turning on the captions… that is, if the movie has them.
Going to the movies is a totally different story. Even though the volume level in most movie theaters is loud enough to wake the dead, my problem isn’t with the overall volume. My problem is there are things like background music, explosions, and other noises on the soundtrack in addition to the dialog. My problem is that I’m expected to understand whispered speech over all the other sounds they’ve added in as part of the experience. That can be challenging for someone with perfectly normal hearing, never mind someone with hearing loss.
Options? Oh, I can find a theater showing movies with captioning. Which means limited theaters, limited show times and driving everyone else nuts with the words across the bottom of the screen. Or, I can go to a theater that provides assistive devices.
Sounds great, right? Yeah. In theory. Ever tried it?
You have to go to the box office, the employee you speak to inevitably will never have handled this type of thing before and you have the challenge of trying to understand what they’re saying in the noisy theater environment. So, the conversation involves a lot of “huh?” and “I’m sorry, could you repeat that?” on your part and a lot of frustration on theirs.
After you’ve spoken to no less than three employees and gone through a sign out process that involves promising your soul to the god of cinema, you get handed whatever adaptive device that particular theater is using. (it’s now time to cross your fingers that the device they handed you actually works, isn’t covered in popcorn grease, and actually connects to whatever system they have)
The most common in our area are these funky things that fit in your cup holder and give you a screen with captions. Great. Except…
You’re filling up my cup holder. Which means I need to use the other one for my drink. Which means the person on the other side of me is not happy. And… that little screen is kinda out of line of sight from the movie screen. Which means I can either watch the movie, or read the dialog.
Then I saw the promo for the new Sony glasses that Regal has been slowly rolling out. Sounds cool… instead of having to look down at a little screen, you just put on a pair of glasses that allow you, and only you, to see the captions, in your line of sight, so you can watch the movie at the same time. Wooohooo! What a cool idea! I don’t have to bounce my head back and forth and I don’t have to drive my companions nuts and I don’t have to…
Wait… they look like that? Ummm… wow. OK, call me shallow, but… really? My choices are: miss important dialog because I can’t hear it, go to a limited screening that inconveniences everyone, use a cumbersome device that inconveniences those around me, or look like a complete and total dork, plus sit through the whole movie wondering, “How do they clean these things between users?”
Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s all great, but… wow. No wonder people have issues admitting to any level of disability.
Related articles
- Regal to let deaf moviegoers see what they’ve been missing (newsobserver.com)
- Captions Come with Choices: A Guest Post by CaptionFish.com (lipreadingmom.com)
Thanks for sharing this – I hope that in some way it will serve to improve the world for those who suffer with these and other challenges. I hope that we can get to the point where we are all better informed and thoroughly willing to make any and all necessary accommodations as any of us would like done for ourselves.
Blessings to you today 🙂
-Jen
http://thelilyandthemarrow.wordpress.com/
I found your article very helpful. Because I faced the same problem. Thanks
federal job process
I’m sorry about your problems with movie theaters and with your hearing in general. But at the rate technology is going, you could get something that’ll improve your situation within the next couple of years.
Assuming we don’t totally ruin ourselves in the process, that is.
Thank you, and you’re right… though I am fairly fortunate – I don’t have quite the significant negative impact on life that others do, so I’m able to laugh about the minor inconveniences.
Well, they say laughter’s the best medicine. Looks like you’re doing some good self-medication.
” … use a cumbersome device that inconveniences those around me, or look like a complete and total dork … ”
Dude, you just described every single human being of normal hearing who is walking around on any city street, head down, absorbed in their phone, snapping their gum, and texting while totally oblivious to traffic and other pedestrians. Suck it up and use the glasses — they sound like a great idea. 🙂
Yes, they do… and I’ll probably try them… sometime when I’m by myself… Seriously, thanks for the laugh!
Those glasses are incredibly dorky. I usually don’t mind looking like a dork – but those glasses would give me pause too.
Maybe Google Glasses or some variation on that will be the answer for the future.
I work in adaptive technology at a university, and while we strive to make things available for students, its hard to fully adapt things to a full and non-distracting experience.
That’s part of the challenge – it’s the trade off between effective and convenient, among other things.
I like it
Great insight! Unfortunately, hearing loss is in my future. Whatever they may do to prevent it, everyone on my Mom’s side of the family is most of the way deaf by age 65 or 70. Combined with genes for long life, that leaves 15-20 years of “driving everybody else in the room nuts”! Maybe by the time I reach that age, they’ll just be able to replace human hearing mechanisms with stuff grown on mice?
Sad thing here is the cutting edge technology is always changing. Don’t you think it is hard to keep up with this technology?
Yes, that’s one of the big challenges faced by anyone. What is cutting edge today will be old-school soon enough. It’s one reason why I think there has to be a better option – maybe something that allows you to use your smart phone…
You mean smart cell, right? http://www.segmation.com
Yes…
oh wow! I have a hearing disability and “what did he say?” is exactly right! I’m a real movie buff, and without subtitles I miss a lot of dialogue (partly why i love watching foreign films, they have subs at least!), but even in cinemas there’s not much you can do but try to lipread – but I have high hopes that there’ll be something out there for people like us one day 🙂
This is great technology for not only the hard of hearing but people with sensory issues. For example some spectrum kiddos wear headphones to block a lot of the noise and theaters, and can use this to follow the movie. really cool.
Great as always, congrats on being FP’d! 😀
Thank you!
I too have a hearing issue that makes in hard for me to parse out dialogue from background noise. My family has gotten used to captions on the screen at home. My fully hearing partner and daughter even request them now because dialogue can be lost at the best of times the way they master sound on things.
I wasn’t aware of these devices, being that I already wear glasses, I’m not sure that they’d work for me. I look dorky enough!
Thanks for sharing 🙂
Reblogged this on PESONA 8O81 and commented:
What’d he say? Adaptive technology for the movies…
Reblogged this on THE PARADIGM GROUP.
hearing loss would be very hard for you, hope you have the right tools and courage to overcome this
This technology would really help those with hearing issues. I hope that this becomes more influential and takes off!
this is technology and am sure it would go a long way. Dont know the price points but am sure everything can be worked upon. How about headphones? Do you think they will be helpful? (just a thought till this or some other technology takes full swing)