Only One in Four Wears One

Roughly one in four people who could benefit from a hearing aid wears one. The other three are in your meetings.

This isn't a flaw in anyone. Hearing aids are a piece of technology that makes life easier, the way glasses do, and there shouldn't be any shame attached. But there is, and it shows up in some very recognisable ways. You know the colleagues I mean:

The ones who constantly ask for something to be repeated in meetings.

The ones who suddenly noticed how loud the office air conditioning became.

The ones who nod along in agreement while having no idea what was just said to them.

The ones who can't hear high-frequency sounds any more: the microwave beep, a certain phone ringtone, the smoke alarm's low-battery chirp.

Here is the uncomfortable part. On average it takes a person about ten years from the moment they first stop hearing the punchlines to the moment they buy hearing aids. Ten years of pretending you knew what your boss was saying. Essentially, we've decided we would rather stay confused in meetings than look old.

Which is a strange trade, because the thing we're avoiding is a tiny gadget that no longer looks medical at all. Modern hearing aids are Bluetooth devices. They pair like AirPods, they play music, they take phone calls. Set aside the medical side of the story and they're just an interesting piece of technology that happens to live in your ear.

So this is the encouragement: if any of the four descriptions above sounded familiar, get your hearing checked. It's a simple test, and it makes the everyday work environment a lot easier and more pleasant. Not to mention you'll stop missing the punchlines.

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CTALK exists for the three in four. Live captions on your lens are not a hearing aid and don't need to be: they're glasses, and nobody has ever been embarrassed to wear glasses.