{"id":4962,"date":"2010-11-05T16:30:31","date_gmt":"2010-11-05T21:30:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/?p=4962"},"modified":"2010-11-05T16:34:01","modified_gmt":"2010-11-05T21:34:01","slug":"eccescopy-part-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/?p=4962","title":{"rendered":"Eccescopy, part 8"},"content":{"rendered":"

There was a time, not too long ago, when putting an electronic auditory enhancement device in your ear was something you did surreptitiously. A hearing aid was something you tried to hide — ideally you didn’t want anyone to know that you needed one. For example, here is an ad for a hearing aid designed to be as invisible as possible:<\/p>\n


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This is consistent with the principle that people generally try, whenever possible, to appear “more normal”. Since auditory impairment is seen as “less normal”, a hearing aid is viewed as something to hide.<\/p>\n

But there has been a fascinating recent trend in the other direction. When a hearing device on one’s ear is seen as a source of empowerment, as in the case of bluetooth hands-free cellphones, people don’t try to hide these devices. Rather, they try to show them off.<\/p>\n

The ultimate current expression of this is the Aliph<\/i> “Jawbone” headset:<\/p>\n


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Suddenly it’s cool and sexy to have a piece of hi-tech equipment attached to your ear. I think that the key distinction here is between “I am trying to fix a problem” and “I am giving myself a superpower”. The former makes you socially vulnerable, whereas the latter makes you socially powerful.<\/p>\n

This is something to consider when designing an eccescopic display device.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There was a time, not too long ago, when putting an electronic auditory enhancement device in your ear was something you did surreptitiously. A hearing aid was something you tried to hide — ideally you didn’t want anyone to know that you needed one. For example, here is an ad for a hearing aid designed … Continue reading “Eccescopy, part 8”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4962"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4962"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4962\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4971,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4962\/revisions\/4971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}