The Silence of Deafness is an Abstract, not an Absolute.
I was fourteen, almost fifteen years old when a friend of my mom’s decided that it would be fun to introduce me to AOL chatrooms. This was 1994, and the chatrooms had not yet de-evolved into the utter crud that they are today. Text flew by at a rapid pace, next to screennames. I had never even really used a computer before–except for the occasional game that we’d play in “computer class” in elementary school. This was a far cry from playing “Oregon Trail” or “Where in the World is Carmen San Diego”? These were people. Speaking in text. Whole conversations, overlapping, in what my mind experienced as “closed captioning”. I watched, my eyes eating it up, and then did something that I had not done since I lost my hearing nearly 10 years before. I jumped in. To a conversation. With strangers. I haven’t hesitated since. The internet is my element. It has been my home since I was fifteen. And I can no longer imagine life without it. How did you feel when you “discovered” the internet? What was life like before it? And now?
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SomewhatSilent is an international community blogging effort centered around d/Deafness, hard of hearing, etc.
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November 14th, 2005 at 1:17 pm
yup, the internet to me is a wonderful resourse tool, but the one thing Iv learned the hard way personally,
you must treat the net with respect, to get the most out of it.
but now, id be lost without it
what still amazes me is, that i can speak to someone at the opposite side of the world!! in real time!! no waiting for emails! and you cant do that with anything other than the net, because otherwise, the phone bills would be collossal!!
November 14th, 2005 at 2:51 pm
Yes, I agree completely. It’s transformed my quality of life in so many ways.