TTY versus IMs
Apr. 8th, 2006 03:03 pmLooks like I'm not the only deaf person who's migrated to IM in preference over TTY. Just ran across an article discussing this trend. Explanation: TTY really is a very chunky medium.
See, the way it works is you have this machine that you put your telephone receptor on. It takes your typing and turns them into special beepy sounds into the phone, and hopefully at the other end there's a similar machine that makes beepy noises back.
The only indicator about the line's condition and call status is a very ambiguous blinking light. There's a certain pattern for dial tone and for busy signals and whatnot, but I never learned them. So, basically it come down to sitting there wondering if your call's getting through. And you sit there until you either get an intelligible response back or you give up.
If someone picks up the phone you called and is confused about the strange beeping sounds their phone's making, and talks to it, you have no clue other than that your TTY machine tends to turn their voice into gibberish, given that it wasn't the special beeping the machines understands.
It's a good way to confuse people who don't know what TTYs are.
This is why instant messaging is enormously popular with deaf people. Far.... more user-friendly.
See, the way it works is you have this machine that you put your telephone receptor on. It takes your typing and turns them into special beepy sounds into the phone, and hopefully at the other end there's a similar machine that makes beepy noises back.
The only indicator about the line's condition and call status is a very ambiguous blinking light. There's a certain pattern for dial tone and for busy signals and whatnot, but I never learned them. So, basically it come down to sitting there wondering if your call's getting through. And you sit there until you either get an intelligible response back or you give up.
If someone picks up the phone you called and is confused about the strange beeping sounds their phone's making, and talks to it, you have no clue other than that your TTY machine tends to turn their voice into gibberish, given that it wasn't the special beeping the machines understands.
It's a good way to confuse people who don't know what TTYs are.
This is why instant messaging is enormously popular with deaf people. Far.... more user-friendly.