Designer Senses

I experienced a decline in hearing while I was still working, and made necessary adjustments, like sitting closer to the speakers at Seminars so I could hear them. After all, I thought, hearing aids were for old people, not me. But when I began having difficulty hearing my 12-year old granddaughter and often had to ask her to repeat something she said, I decided to get my hearing checked.

When the audiologist tested me, I learned that the ability to hear high frequency sounds, like my granddaughter’s voice, is especially likely to decline with age.  I laughed when she said that more people come to her about hearing problems with their grandchildren than about difficulties hearing their spouse. I think this may not just be due to the differences in the pitch of their voices!

But then I did it- I now have two hearing aids and my hearing has definitely improved. I put them on in the morning right after I come out of the shower and dress. But I have started thinking that there should be designer features on them that could be adjusted by the wearer, and are now possible given advances in technology. For example, I have a friend who is very sensitive to other people’s voices and empathetic to their moods. While this means she can instantly sense other’s painful feelings, and this helps make her a wonderful friend, sometimes it would be good if she could turn off or even turn down that capability. Perhaps a feature could be built into a hearing aid so that someone supersensitive to moods through their voices could at times cut down on that ability.  Similarly, wouldn’t it be nice if we could adjust our hearing capability so that when something complementary was said to us it automatically increased the volume (even adding appropriate music), and the sound would be muted when anger or criticism was expressed.

And what about designer features for vision aids? Last year I had cataract surgery, replacing my lenses. My vision has improved, but I still see reality. Most of the time this is what I want to look at, but not always. It would be nice to come with a feature that allowed me to adjust what I see. Reality would be my usual setting, but sometimes I would like the ability to block out the sight of messy garbage on the street, or to enhance a setting with brighter sunshine. Also, if I was talking with someone who was somewhat overbearing in the advice they were giving me, perhaps I could reduce their influence by temporarily making their face fill with ugly pock marks and scars. This would divert my attention, making it more possible for me to question, or even ignore, what they were saying.

Dentistry could also develop designer features. With aging comes teeth replacements, including implants, bridges and dentures. This could open a whole world of tasty possibilities. What if some teeth replacements came with salt and pepper options, or other favorite condiments, like sage or marjoram, or even ketchup and mayo.  You could just tap the appropriate tooth, and the food additive would appear as you chewed your food- no need to go find it. I guess you would periodically need to get refills, but what a time saver this would be, and it might encourage the exploration of new food tastes. Clearly, mouthwash should be an option in this redesign.

So what’s the point of these designer senses? I propose that as we age and need replacements or fixes for some of our equipment, rather than simply looking to restore previous functioning of our senses, there should be efforts to enhance and improve on the capabilities that have declined.  That makes the most sense to me.