the problem with cochlear implants is not the implants themselves, but the medical and audiology industry around them, and their incredible dense-headed ableist push of cochlear implants on deaf people and their families (especially hearing families at times when they are still completely clueless about everything deaf and overwhelmed with finding out about their child's newfound disability) as a cure to deafness when they absolutely are not anywhere near being a cure.
they are a wonderful technology that can bring hearing to a subset of deaf people who cannot benefit from hearing aids, but they ARE NOT A CURE, and that is how the industry is presenting and treating them as, often recommending it to people who still have plenty of residual hearing left and can and should use hearing aids, permanently destroying their abilities to use hearing aids and leaving them reliant on cochlear implants. they present cochlear implants as if, when a deaf person, young or old, gets them, will no longer be disabled and never need the special attention, help, skills, knowledge, and accommodations deaf/hoh people and especially children need, and are often used as an excuse to not teach children sign language even though all of us need and should learn sign language.
while the direct connection cochlear implants have to the brain allows several improvements over hearing aids like overcoming the limitations on amplification, not being limited by the users own levels of speech comprehension left, and allowing the user to hear some sound distinctions that aren't possible with hearing aids, the benefits they provide over hearing aids are marginal at best if the user can use hearing aids.
first, it's important to note that getting cochlear implants is a mostly-irreversible invasive surgical procedure with (minimal, but still existing) possibility for complications to occur. getting cochlear implants also effectively means giving up on your ears completely as it soon means you lose any residual hearing you have left. the device that's planted in your skull is not meant to be upgraded (only should it break down would they risk replacing it with an upgraded device), and the level of audio information quality it delivers to the brain, in my opinion, leaves a lot to be desired, and needs to be improved on, and has been in hearing aids in the time since cochlear implants have become available. even now, there is so much that can and should be improved in hearing aids technology, the difference is, you can upgrade the entirety of a hearing aid, but you can't risk upgrading one of the most important parts of a cochlear implant.
you should also know that the outer detachable parts, the cochlear implant sound processors after all, are still effectively hearing aids.
they need to be taken off when dealing with wet conditions of any sort.
the microphone's capabilities are limited by the size and the manufacturer's complete lack of fucks to give about catching up with the development in audio bc deaf people are just not a big enough market to make them profit.
the sound quality and processing thereof including any ability to focus who and what you're listening to while minimizing unwanted or unneeded sounds and distortions but still be able to hear and perceive everything in a way that allows us to be immersed in sound.
sounds from any other electronic device will often be completely butchered rendering the necessity of directly transmitting the sound to the hearing device via bluetooth or other transmission options (t-coil, etc.)
most importantly, a person with cochlear implants still has all the same struggles a person with hearing aids has with hearing in their life, and they still need all the same strategies, accommodations, and skills/knowledge to live their life.
let me say this again, cochlear implants like hearing aids makes deaf people hard of hearing at best. we all are still disabled and need to learn skills/strategies and accommodations to deal with our disability.
but if you were to listen to how a doctor talks about cochlear implants to clueless hearing parents of a child they just found out is deaf or hard of hearing, who would absolutely be able to thrive on hearing aids and the proper help without an invasive mostly-irreversible and unupgradeable surgical procedure with possible complications and a recovery and auditory training, you'd come away with the impression that getting a cochlear implant would make this disability disappear, something those parents are probably desperate for while still overwhelmed.
if you were to listen to how audiologists speak of cochlear implants to their deaf clients, the dismissiveness and utter more-knowledgeable-than-you arrogance they speak with, you'd be just as angry as i am, especially when they rarely ever truly understand what it is like to be deaf and how you actually use and need your hearing aids to be.
if you've read to this point, you might be wondering, why do i care so much about what other people do with their hearing? well, i'll give you an example of why this attitude and propaganda the medical and audiology industry pushes is horrible, some schools are considering recommending that their deaf students get cochlear implants instead of being allowed to learn and use sign. in places where public healthcare allows those of us with lesser financial means to get these expensive aids we need, especially in countries where they have private healthcare, the industry is trying to push government to subsidise and recommend cochlear implants instead of hearing aids. companies that make hearing aids already focus much more on making hearing aids for the hard of hearing and older people who lose their hearing from old age, and any deaf people that can and should use hearing aids that end up getting CIs instead are now one less person in the market for hearing aids for the deaf and one more excuse for these companies to invest in and improve those hearing aids.
