The Atlantic Monthly Technology blog has a great post on how people who are blind have embraced the iPhone after initially dismissing it as an inaccessible slab of glass when it was first introduced. What changed? Apple made great strides in improving the accessibility of iOS and clever app designers exploited the hardware capabilities of each successive iPhone model. But some advocates worry that the blind are now becoming overly dependent on the technology:
Yet for all that technology has helped achieve, many in the blind community fear it might result in illiteracy in the generations to come. “I think the technology that’s coming out right now is wonderful,” says Chalkias,”but I also think it’s dumbing us down because it’s making everything so easy. I have a lot of teens who have speech technology and they don’t know how to spell, and it’s horrifying to see that.
I’m hopeful that mobile computing will eventually be embraced by those of us with severe mobility impairments, but that day may not arrive for at least a few more years.
