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After he became a telegrapher, Edison discovered his deafness did not prevent him from hearing the clicking of the telegraph instrument and he became an especially rapid operator, for normal distractions did not bother him at all.  Once he said to Edward Marshall, “It may be said that I was shut off from that paricualr kind of social intercourse called small talk.  I’m glad of it.  I couldn’t hear, for instance, conversations at the dinner tables of the boarding houses and hotels where ...I took my meals.  Freedom from such talk gave me an opportunity to think out my problems.  I have no doubt that my nerves are stronger and better today than they would have been if I had heard all the foolish conversations and other meaningless sounds normal people hear.  Things I have needed to hear, I have heard.” - T. H. Palmer

Lifetime Speaker’s Encyclopedia, Volume 1, Jacob M. Braude, page 339