These days, the mobile phone network is a great deal more dependable (and there’s a lot less static involved). But that doesn’t mean everybody can hear you all the time. In fact, there’s one population for whom phone conversations aren’t always a positive experience: those who have hearing loss.
There must be a simple solution for that, right? Can’t you use some hearing aids to help you hear phone conversations better? Actually, it doesn’t work precisely like that. Even though hearing aids can help with conversations, with phone conversations it can be a bit more difficult. But there are definitely a few things you can do to make your phone calls more effective.
Why hearing aids and phone calls don’t always play nice
Hearing loss usually isn’t sudden. Your hearing normally doesn’t just go. You have a tendency to lose bits and pieces at a time. It’s likely that you won’t even notice you have hearing loss and your brain will try to utilize contextual and visual clues to compensate.
When you have phone conversations, you no longer have these visual clues. Your Brain doesn’t have the information it requires to fill in the blanks. You only hear parts and pieces of the other individual’s voice which sounds muffled and distorted.
Hearing aids can be helpful – here’s how
Hearing aids will help with this. They’ll particularly help your ears fill in many of those missing pieces. But talking on the phone while wearing hearing aids can present some accessibility issues.
For instance, putting your hearing aids close to a phone speaker can cause some harsh speaker-to-speaker interference. This can result in some uncomfortable gaps in conversation because you can’t hear that well.
Tips to improve the phone call experience
So, what can you do to address the obstacles of utilizing a phone with hearing aids? Well, there are several tips that the majority of hearing specialists will advocate:
- Utilize video apps: You might have an easier time making out phone conversations on a video call. It isn’t that the sound quality is somehow better, it’s that your brain has use of all of that fantastic visual information again. And this can help you put context to what’s being said.
- Stream your phone to your hearing aid using Bluetooth. Yes, contemporary hearing aids can connect to your smartphone via Bluetooth! This means you’ll be able to stream phone calls right to your hearing aids (if your hearing aids are Bluetooth capable). If you’re having difficulty using your phone with your hearing aid, a great place to begin getting rid of feedback would be switching to Bluetooth.
- Try using speakerphone to conduct the majority of your phone conversations: Most feedback can be prevented this way. There may still be a little distortion, but your phone call should be mostly understandable (while maybe not necessarily private). Knowing how to hold the phone better with hearing aids (that is, away from your ears) is critical, and speakerphone is how you achieve this!
- Try to take your phone calls in a quiet location. It will be a lot easier to hear the voice on the other end if there’s less background sound. Your hearing aids will be much more effective by decreasing background noise.
- Be honest with the person you’re speaking with on the phone: If phone calls are hard for you, it’s fine to admit that! You might simply need to be a little extra patient, or you may want to think about switching to text, email, or video chat.
- Hearing aids aren’t the only assistive hearing device you can use: There are other assistive devices and services that can help you hear better when you’re having a phone conversation (including many text-to-type services).
Finding the best set of solutions will depend on what you use the phone for, how frequently you’re on the phone, and what your overall communication requirements are like. Your ability to once again enjoy phone conversations will be made possible with the correct approach.
Call us for some help and guidance on how to best utilize your phone and hearing aids at the same time.