Sending text messages via mobile phones is helping deaf people to interact with the hearing community, according to researchers of Bond University in Queensland, in Australia.

Mobile phones put deaf people on the “same level playing field as hearing people” when communicating via SMS, declares Associate Professor Mary Power. “It’s not a disability to be deaf when you are texting.”

Deaf people can also use text to access services, such as calling roadside services, book tickets for concerts and things, or vote in reality TV shows. It just puts [deaf people] into the mainstream.”

Traditional technologies that deaf people use to communicate, such as using the telephone via a teletypewriter (TTY) system, in which a person can send written messages to another teletypewriter, are of limited use as hearing people wishing to communicate with them do not often have these technologies.

Besides, other technologies are not as cheap or easy to use as SMS texts, for example, email is less spontaneous and less mobile.

From Textually ABC Online.