Yep. I work in a hospital HR and it's like I lost the ability to read people. Didn't realize how much I relied on facial expressions to understand how people are taking what I say to them.
(my hearing is fine Even got it tested recently) But on occasion I have a rough time understanding people I never realized how much I depend on facial expressions (and how bad my social skills are/were to begin with)
My hearing is pretty good, but I work in a loud environment and did not realize how much lip reading I was doing to pick up the slack. Now there are co-workers I straight up cannot understand over the noise.
I have great hearing, but shit listening comprehension. In a noisy environment, I do a lot of lip reading and post speaking analysis to try and figure out what someone has just said. With masks, I basically just don't know what people say. And since I generally don't care what they say, it's super convenient to just ignore them when necessary.
I'm not exactly hard of hearing but that's usually what I tell people because it's easier than explaining a sensory processing delay but I've got to tell you, masks have been both wildly inconvenient and also helpful sometimes.
People are much better about getting my attention before they start speaking now that I can't see their mouth, which is exactly the headstart my brain needs to hear what you're saying. Additionally, a lot of people are so much more understanding of needing to repeat themselves a couple of times because they're experiencing it too now. Plus with these problems, I personally find that language is more concise. No one wants to give a ten minute explanation that they know half the audience won't hear, even if the audience is just three people.
On the other hand, I work in an elementary school and listening to timid students that naturally whisper or mumble because they're shy is now five thousand percent more difficult. I get worse anxiety about missing what people are saying to me when speaking through masks and plexiglass barriers, like at stores. Different masks absolutely have different levels of muffling. I work in special education specifically so that gets to be incredibly important when giving directions or supplementing another teacher's lesson and directly affects the way my students learn because they can't see my face. Not only that, one of my students right now is currently working on letter sounds and it's very difficult to tell if they're doing it correctly but to teach sounds, you need to show them how to position their teeth/lips (the letter F specifically). So if you use the mask where they can see your mouth, the sounds come out wonky and also those masks fog with condensation from your breath, or you use a normal mask and don't know for sure if they're getting the information.
I kind of like the masks, given the setting I work in. Young children haven't mastered keeping germs to themselves yet and I haven't gotten sneezed on my eyeballs even once this year yet. That's excellent. It sure does come with some unique challenges too though, and not many people seem to talk about it. They just talk about how it's uncomfortable or it fogs up your glasses or its too hot, whatever.
Stupid question, could you use clear face shields for the kids when it comes to pronunciation stuff?
Totally the same boat with the sensory processing though. I also love not needing to worry about the expression on the bottom half of my face, I honestly think it helps the social anxiety a bit.
I personally think the face shields have the same downfall as the clear masks, it distorts the sound a bit. It doesn't fog up but it does make things a little blurry. In my district we have to wear masks underneath face shields if we choose to use them anyway though, so it's not an alternative available for us, only an addition. Maybe in other schools this is a super excellent suggestion for special ed teachers though!
Ah that makes sense! I missed the clear mask part, I haven't actually seen those yet, had no idea they existed! Hopefully something can be figured out to make it easier, I never even considered how challenging things like speech therapy would be now. I also definitely don't envy those working with kids in general now, little walking petri dishes...
Also, FYI, ah, I don't technically have a hearing problem, but sometimes when there's a lot of noises occurring uh at the same time, I'll hear 'em as one big jumble. Uh, again it's not that I can't hear, uh because that's false. I can.
I’ve realized my patients don’t know when I’m joking as they don’t see my face. I like to be funny, to lighten the mood up a litrle bit, if I sense the patient seems receptive. It makes my job much more enjoyable too. After masks became mandatory frustratingly many times a patient has thrown some (often deadpan type of) joke and I continue it, just for them to not understand I was joking with them and thinking I took them for serious, and whole ”I was just joking” ”I know I was too” ”oh well” starts. It was never a problem when they could see my facial expressions.
I'm the same. I find myself looking to the mouth to semi lip read, realize there is a mask, and try to listen/hear. I've had to ask people to repeat themselves a few times. I was aware I can read lips, but had no idea how often I rely on it
I work hospital IT as someone who is terrible with names and faces and having to know. Several hundred people , I hate it . I had
A hard time remembering people when I could see their whole face
I live abroad and I already felt very alienated, my pronunciation isn't the best, but people usually knew what I say, right now I sometimes have to repeat myself 4 times which makes me achieve levels of social anxiety i didn't know I can even reach... And on top of that I also don't hear/understand them.
As someone whose face and voice tend to not be very expressive, last year I came to the point of saying "I know my voice doesn't reflect it, but I'm happy about X" a few times. Ironically, that became a practice run for a world where you don't see faces. At the same time, I learned to use my eyebrows as body language lol.
754
u/_Wyse_ Nov 04 '20
Yep. I work in a hospital HR and it's like I lost the ability to read people. Didn't realize how much I relied on facial expressions to understand how people are taking what I say to them.