What are the biggest difficulties deaf or HOH people face nowadays?

@imallears After having the basic clam cell phone and then getting an inexpensive smart phone the difference and the huge advantage is well worth the money.. The signal is the same so why not use it to the best advantage.. The smart phones work with our Hearing Aids.. There are so many good apps that are so helpful. remote mics, and Google maps keeps us from being lost... or it finds our way out of unfamiliar territory.. I cut out my landline years ago.. . K

Cell phone service: Check out Consumer Cellular! We live where we have no cell reception at home, or near our home, so I use mine when I'm away from home, my spouse almost never uses his as he's an invalid and rarely leaves home. We have one basic plan for the two of us: $35 month, using AT&T towers, which happen to be the best one in our small town. Here, there's no cell reception even in City Hall, unless you have the WiFi password. If I exceed the data use that comes with the basic plan, I get a warning. I've been surprised, as I do use the cell for texting a great deal. I've only gotten a warning once, and that was during the week we were evacuated to the metro area two hours north due to a local forest fire, and I used the phone constantly in an attempt to learn if our house was still here. (It was, fire never got closer than a mile away, never got into the hundreds of acres of unroaded old-growth forest that surrounds our place.)

Another advantage of a smart phone is that they all have apps to control your aid(s), which is far easier than messing with those tiny bumps on the aids themselves! IPhones are more expensive but pair more easily with many aids; I have a Samsung, less $$, still pairs with my aid, actually has better GPS than the IPhone I started with.

Imallears, you're exactly correct about salesmen (usually young guys) having a real attitude about older women who can't hear well. Sheesh! Just because we can't hear doesn't mean that we have no brains! My greatest frustration is getting answers to questions about using smartphones when reception is so very poor: all the stores are in cities, where there are cell towers everywhere, and these young pups can't even imagine a place without reception, have no answers. I'll bet that lots of them can't even imagine a time when people didn't go around with phones glued to their ears!

@catladyde9 and @tonyinmi Thank you for sharing this detailed information. A big problem is that people do not know what to ask for or look for. Considerable advocacy from HLAA has been done on this issue, starting over 25 years ago when we recognized that cell phones were going to be the way of the future. The early models were NOT hearing aid compatible. And, you are right. Few people at the cell phone outlets know what we are asking for when we say we want to use our telecoils. That 'back room' is important for them to go to. If they are not willing to do that, you have a poor provider. Also, they want to sell the high priced models, so will probably steer you away from the flip phones. Stick to your guns if that is what you want. Keep educating and advocating and asking questions. It all helps.

Here's another 'senior citizen' story. My husband dropped his Iphone6 in the toilet. Thankfully, clean water. Rescued it and took the dessicant (SP?) from my hearing device dehumidifier out and put it in a zip lock bag with the phone. The next morning the phone would turn on, but would not receive calls, nor could he use any of the apps. We figured it was dead. Took to Verizon, where we sat on a bench for nearly an hour before one of the 5 sales people there could help us. Amazing that some were helping a single customer that entire time. (Looked more like courtship in one case.) When a sales guy finally came to help us he took one look at the phone and said it was probably damaged beyond repair. He offered John an 'inexpensive' new iPhone option for $450 to replace it. Together we decided to check with our daughter and family to see if they had an older phone he could have reconfigured, so we walked out of Verizon while telling them we were going to check with family about a used phone. (KIds replace the dang things pretty often.) The Verizon guy did tell us they would reconfigure a used one if we could find one. No cost estimate, but guessing it would be a few bucks.

Long story short: Took the phone to our son in law, who is tech savvy. He had a used phone to give us, but it ended up it was not needed. He did a few things, including removing the back of the phone, which had also been in an Otter Box which we had removed. Pushed a few buttons and made a phone call. The phone worked perfectly. So no need for a new one or a refurbished old one.

We were so happy we were not suckered in to buying a new phone that day. I do think that seniors often get that kind of treatment. And the reality is; few of us are savvy like the young folks are. Those sales folks probably want to avoid us when we arrive in the first place. We're living in a crazy world.

@julieo4
I did the same thing with my flip phone and when I got home the old phone fit in my Dry and Store. Worked like new the next day.
Just needed drying out. Probably because your hubby's iPhone and my old phone did not sit in the water long enough.
Also dropped an ITE hearing aid in regular water, managed to pry it open (that's went I actually saw what was inside one of these things).
Amazing what a hair dryer can do. I did have to glue the 2 parts back together and it worked until it didn't. Long ago also.

FL Mary

@julieo4, Funny, but not funny. The harsh reality is that many sales people are crooks. They'll often tell us the things that they think we'll believe. It's all about the money. They may not have a way of billing for certain repairs so will try to sell you a product instead of trying to spend the time to research the problem. They certainly had no problem spending all that time with a single customer.
Grrrr
Tony in Michigan

Weird. Ongoing battle on HOH not calling us part of the deaf world. I think it is an UK vs USA mater and or youth vs oldies folks . . Supposedly we should call ourself Deaf. I have gotten trouble for stating I am hearing impaired rather hearing challenged. It seems less need of what I mean when I say I am hearing impaired. Folks stated I am putting me in a negative light.
On another issue- my hearing aids are dying after 16 years. I brought over the counter aids . Most are for mild to moderate. Works somewhat. I did get a pair I thought were hearing aids for moderate to severe loss. They were stated they are aids. They are not. They are amphiers. My tinnitus got worse even though only wore for ness- 1-2 hours. Be careful.

The terminology surrounding hearing loss gets as weird as the assumptions people make about hearing loss.

The difference between being Deaf of Deaf culture, and being partially deaf or hard of hearing is important to understand.

Those of Deaf culture, most often people who were born deaf who use manual communication exclusively, believe that deafness as they experience it is their norm. They don't want to hear, and resent people who tell them they should want to hear. Therefore, they do not accept the term 'impaired', because they don't believe themselves to have an impairment.

Hard of hearing people experience hearing loss differently. Most want to hear and will do what they can to bring clear sound to their 'impaired or damaged' ears. We HH folks don't embrace our hearing loss as beautiful. While we can bring these populations together to work on common goals, it is next to impossible to expect complete collaboration. One groups solution to communication access is sign language. The other group's solution is technology that helps them hear. It just doesn't mesh very well. Yet, we can certainly respect each other's needs and opinions as we look for things we can work together on.

I hope you can find the support you need to get decent hearing aids that will help you.

@bookysue

The Deaf Culture people do not like it when we label ourselves deaf. We have been told to use the word “deaf” with a small “d” as opposed to a capital “D”. I have known and associated with many who were born deaf and also a lot of late deafened or hard of hearing people like myself. When I was learning sign language I had one woman in my group who disparaged finger spelling and actually turned her back on me in conversation. I have had only a few encounters with truly Deaf people but my sense is that they can be a very insular group. Those of us who have some sort of hearing loss can flounder when we have to identify ourselves. We have had this discussion before and I have personally found that using the terms “I read lips, please face me “ or in the case of mask wearing...”I read lips and need to use an app to see what you are saying” or something of that nature works well for me. I found that those particular words seem to decrease the stigma of hearing loss and many of the misconceptions about me including hard of hearing means dumb. Maybe it’s the fact that people think wow...this old broad uses apps or they are intrigued with the app.

I don’t like either of the words impaired or challenged... Are we visually impaired or challenged if we wear glasses? Anyway the people you are referring to haven’t walked in your shoes, Don’t let them say negative things to you....really they don’t have a clue but you can educate them. Such people can be very judgmental .....gets my dander up. And don’t be apologetic...ain’t your fault you can’t hear as well as they do....so don’t apologize and hang back. Had a woman say to me years ago with a real superior attitude .”You know they make state of the art hearing aids” No kidding Dick Tracy! I put her nose out of joint too...with a smile on my face.
Please don’t judge something you don’t know about.
.
16 years for a hearing aid is phenomenal. I think the normal life expectancy is 5 years. Go get new ones and a hearing test too. And yes, you got an amplifier erroneously labeled as a hearing aid so no wonder your tinnitus increased. The advertisers are more careful today in making the distinction....might even be a law...I forget.

I don’t even know what discussion this is a part of so hope I didn’t stray in recipes or walking lol.

FL Mary

@julieo4
Love your tactful post...I can be diplomatic too in responding to those who don’t understand...it’s the group that purports to know what is best for you that gets my goat....and that goes for anything. And the question ...”Do you sign?”. How many people have asked you that? I usually say...”No, do you?” I wish I knew how many people have said to me ...”no”. The younger people who ask have usually taken ASL in school...I love that and we have a kind of conversation with the few phrases I remember. I love the young people!

FL Mary