A friend of similar age has worn hearing aids his whole life, but has shared a somewhat different experience. While current-gen hearing aids are very expensive (~$9k), they can pair with his phone and function as bluetooth headphones for all the reasons you'd normally wear headphones (no mic, though).

At least they could if his insurance covered the expense. Instead, he wears tech that's a few years outdated.

Not terribly cool now, but hearing aids are becoming cyborg tech. Better hearing than your peers with broad device interoperability - it might be enough to make folks with decent hearing to consider buying aids, like athletes and lasik / performance contact lenses. We're not far from slightly-outdated hearing aids being pretty cool.

And no, I'm not making light of his deafness - I'm just echoing his own excitement.

That has got to be some devilish tinnitus.