Def ppl luv 2 txt

From: ABC Science Online, Australia - Aug 17, 2004

Heather Catchpole
ABC Science Online

Tuesday, 17 August 2004
Sending text messages via mobile phones is helping deaf people to interact with the hearing community, according to Australian research.

Short message service (SMS) text is also creating new opportunities for deaf people to form relationships, says Associate Professor Mary Power from Bond University in Queensland.

Her research was published in a recent issue of the Journal of Deaf Studies and Deaf Education.

Mobile phones put deaf people on the "same level playing field as hearing people" when communicating via SMS, Power said. "It's not a disability to be deaf when you are texting."

Deaf people were also using text to access services, such as calling roadside services, Power said.

"You can book your tickets for concerts and things, you can vote in reality TV shows. It just puts [deaf people] into the mainstream."

Sending text messages could also increase the bonds between deaf people and create new opportunities for intimacy because "the more people communicate the more chance they have of forming a relationship", Power said.

"You could arrange to meet or have a long texting session," she said. "If you are standing at a nightclub, where everybody is deaf, everybody is using text."

SMS is particularly useful for deaf people in Australia because mobile networks receive messages from other networks, and you aren't charged for receiving them.

Although networks cooperate in a similar manner in the U.K. and some Scandinavian countries, Power said in the U.S. only users with the same mobile network could send texts to each other.

Although there was no direct evidence that deaf people used SMS more often than people who could hear, Power said more and more deaf people in Australia were buying mobile phones.

Other technologies aren't so mobile

Power said 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, were of limited use.

Often hearing people wishing to communicate with deaf people did not have these technologies and had to rely on a relay system or an interpreter.

And other technologies weren't as cheap or easy to use as SMS texts, said Power. For example, email was less spontaneous and less mobile.

"Sending long emails is not the way to go when you are on the move. A short text message with the constraints that everyone understands is more efficient and not a lot of time is wasted," Power said. Texts were also "much more direct".

"You can text anyone else who has a mobile phone and ask what you want," said Power.

Power is planning research with a colleague that asks deaf people what messages they send to find out how they use SMS.

She is also conducting an online survey1 on how Australians over 18 use SMS to communicate.

1. survey = http://www.surveymaker.com.au/sm/survey.cfm?survey=898

© 2004 Australian Broadcasting Corporation