Transcript
Welcome to ASHA Network News, a continuing series that highlights issues of interests to ASHA members.
Joe Cerquone: Today's guest is Gary Shapiro, President and CEO of the Consumers Electronics Association or CEA, which is based in Arlington, Virginia. CEA and the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association have agreed to a new collaboration that is promoting ASHA's "America: Tuned In Today but Tuned out Tomorrow" Public Education Campaign. The campaign focuses on the potential risk of hearing loss from the misuse of personal audio technology. Welcome, Gary Shapiro.
Gary Shapiro: Thanks, Joe. It's a pleasure to be here.
Joe: Gary, if you would please talk a bit about what CEA is and does.
Gary: The Consumer Electronics Association is a trade association. That means it's a group of companies in a specific industry. We're about 2,100 American companies involved in consumer electronics. If it's in your home or in your car and it's electronic, has entertainment information, education, our members either make it or they sell it. So everyone from Circuit City and Best Buy at the retail level to manufacturers like Sony, Apple, Microsoft, Panasonic.
Joe: Could you talk a bit about what the leading trends are in consumer electronics?
Gary: Well, one of our jobs as a trade association is to get people to focus on the industry, to expand the industry if you will, that is what we say our mission is. So the average American family now is spending, believe it or not, about $1500 on hardware for electronics and about $1000 in services per year. It's a leading use of disposable income and there's always some hot story. This year's trend obviously is the iPhone; it was big news. The iPod of yesteryear was big news, mp3 players. But the big things going on are anything that's bigger, better, smaller, faster, cheaper. You know there's never been a price increase announced in the consumer electronics industry. Prices have gone down as quality has gone up. In the video area, what we're seeing is tremendously big screens that are flatter and basically more attractive. The woman is making the decision in the home to buy the product. In the audio area, it's a combination of, believe it or not, sound that is better for the home theater viewing experience, but for the personal audio experience with the mp3 format it's just not as good as what it is with loud speakers. But that sound is portable. And what we're seeing is that people want to have music and video which they can watch anywhere, anytime, any place, when they want it, how they want it. That means that they are creating their own programming. That means they want it when they are around the world, on a plane, in the car, on their way to school or work, and that's what we are seeing. Portability is a big trend and obviously that ties into some of the things that we're talking about and what we're working on with ASHA. It's very important to us that we focus on the safety of people and that's one of the things we're doing. Now in terms of some other trends in the mobile electronics world, the car stereo world it's just not about obviously about car stereo. The car stereos are getting better, but its personal navigation, it's entertainment for the kids in the car, it's information about traffic. Obviously satellite radio has come, but now local radio is going digital with what's called HD Radio. It's just starting to take the nation by storm and that allows about CD quality radio for your local radio station. In terms of other trends, what we're seeing is in obviously broadband is something we work on. We think it is very, very important for any country to get ahead to make sure that consumers have access to broadband, that there be real competition there between different pipelines to the home, whether it be broadcast cable, satellite, telephone, wireless or even power line. So as a trade association where our job is to grow the industry, we're working to make sure there are policies there which encourage the safe use of our products, policies which encourage competition in broadband, and policies which allow us to shift as a country to high definition television, and which we're in the process of doing and indeed in February 2009 the analog signal will turn off and every American then will have to either have HD TV or digital television or have cable or satellite or the government will help you get a box. Your existing TV set will work.
Joe: There sure is a lot going on. I'm wondering what are some of the things in the world of consumer electronics that the average consumer may not know, but it would be helpful for them to know?
Gary: A lot of the news just covers the new products, the iPhones that are out there. But really if you go into a consumer electronics store and if you haven't been to one in a while and you walk around, you'll be amazed by what you can get for an incredibly low price. The beautiful video cameras for just a few hundred dollars, the digital cameras that are out there that do so many different things that focus for you. The TV set, the HDTV set, the flat screen today, which costs about what a color television cost 10 years ago and yet it is twice as beautiful, better sound, wider screen just like the original movie. It's the array of products out there which actually enhance your life in so many different ways and make things better and allow you to have access to the riches that only the rich could have afforded ten or twenty years ago. In fact weren't available to anybody no matter how much money you had. The fact that anyone in the world really can have access to information, education, entertainment, for very little, literally pennies per minute or per hour even of use is just a phenomenal thing.
Joe: Well Gary, I know from an earlier discussion with you that hearing protection is an important issue for you personally. Why is that?
Gary: I personally believe that hearing is an extraordinary gift and it's not something that you should take for granted but something you should protect. For reasons I do not know I've been always very protective of my own hearing, shying away from loud concerts and even loud restaurants frankly and loud music to protecting on airplanes, things like that. It's just extraordinary. When I was in college I studied perception, as a psychology major that was my emphasis, and I did a lot of work studying hearing. And either the physiology of hearing or just the fact that it's the upper frequencies, atrophies over time, you realize it's just not a given that you are going to have the hearing that you do have. And I cringe when I see a lot of people, when I walk by someone and I can hear their personal headset playing. It's just trite when you get older to say that younger people just assume they're always going to be supermen and around forever, but that's a fact that people are sometimes their own worst enemy. And I think we have an obligation to do everything we can to try to make sure that consumers understand that hearing is a gift and it's worthy of protection and you have to be smart about it and that's why we are very pleased to be partnering with an important association to get out the message that protecting the hearing of consumers is important. You know the fact is we're not talking about motorcycles, or cars or things which may be inherently unsafe. Portable audio devices are not inherently unsafe; improperly using them can result in damage to consumers. So we want to use the leverage of our big industry, 150 billion dollars in sales, and we want to do what we can to educate consumers on how to protect their hearing through the proper use of the devices. You know, in 1982 or 83 I negotiated with the New York State Attorney General the actual language that was used and still is used in many portable headset audio sales, which basically says be smart when you use your headset. It talks about using it not only for hearing safety but also being distracted. Obviously you shouldn't be driving a car and wearing a personal device or even a bicycle for that matter. People have to be smart when they use these things. They're very, they're great parts of our lives but that doesn't mean that it's a 24-hour a day thing. So we encourage people to use their hearing devices, use their listening devices rather, in a way that protects their hearing. To me that's the kind of thing, I'm lucky enough to have a job where I can have some influence over that, so I intend to use it that way.
Joe: Well I know too that you also personally have a story about having had a speech disorder as a boy. Would you care to share that story?
Gary: Well when I was younger I lisped and I stuttered and my parents had me go to a speech therapist. I remember going in elementary school and I think it was part of the public school program. And I remember actually enjoying the sessions or the lessons with the speech therapists I had. It was almost a game to me at the time and I lost my lisp. And the stutter I guess it went away as well because I do a tremendous amount of public speaking now and like being a human being I will occasionally stumble and even stutter. It's not something that I have had a issue with for several decades now and I feel fortunate about that but I also feel grateful to those teachers, or therapists, that helped me along the way and to my parents that cared enough that they fixed it. Clearly, it's like protecting your hearing, protecting and moving your speech along, they kind of work hand in hand. So I certainly am appreciative of what I have and thank anyone who is listening to this, who is in the business on behalf of their predecessors who work with me.
Joe: Well it's very kind of you to say that and it's very good of you to be our guest today and on behalf of ASHA I want to thank you and CEA for your support for our campaign.
Gary: Well it's a great partnership, it's for a great cause and I hope we do, I hope we succeed and do great things together in the future.
Joe: Very Good. Thank you very much, Gary Shapiro.
Gary: Thank you, Joe.
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