The Experiences of Deaf and Hard of Hearing People on Social Networking Sites

Social networking sites (SNSs) have become extremely popular among deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) people. As these users can have particular communication needs when compared with other users, it is important to know their characteristics like language skills, ways of communicating and using SNSs, as well as technology use skills that may affect their experiences when using SNSs. Thus, there is a need to develop a conceptual frame for examining the experiences of D/HH users with SNSs. The purpose of this paper is to introduce the conceptual frame and present the findings of its implementation. The concept comprises aspects and factors and it is suggested to examine the relationships between them. Based on that concept, a questionnaire was developed in German sign and written language. It was implemented online as a sample recruited from the German D/HH population, where 199 users of SNSs were included. In regard to some of the results online Deaf identity was positively related to community building and negatively related to online hearing identity. Community building was positively related to connections with other communities. Additionally, some parts of the factors affected aspects, i.e. we found that sign language skills significantly affected community building. Some initial conclusions drawn from our results are discussed regarding in particular recommendations for deaf education.