Growth of viral video leaves deaf in the dark

Viral videos may be good for sharing ideas and spreading funny foreign pop hits, but they are also leaving millions of deaf and hearing-impaired people out of the loop.

Online video is becoming a more ubiquitous part of American life. Netflix videos made up one-third of online data used in the United States last year. YouTube expects 90 percent of online traffic to be video in the next few years. By 2016, Cisco estimates that 1.2 million minutes of video will be streamed or downloaded every second. That video explosion has been great for small film and TV producers, who are able to reach an audience without a big studio budget, and fans of niche programming. But in some ways, it has left the deaf and hard-of-hearing community starting from scratch after years of advocating for captions on traditional television. “We could be back to square one,” said Christian Vogler, director of the Technology Access Program at Gallaudet University.