Is It Apple’s Fault?
Last week, two major shareholders of Apple, hedge fund Jana Partners and California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS), called on the tech giant to do more to protect children from the harmful effects of consuming too much screen time. Holding a combined $2 billion in Apple stock, these shareholders cited research from Professor Jean Twenge’s book, iGen, showing that:
- U.S. teenagers who spend 3 hours a day or more on electronic devices are 35% more likely to have a risk factor for suicide than those who spend less than 1 hour.
- Teens who spend 5 hours or more per day are 71% more likely to have suicidal risk factors.
- 8th graders who are heavy users of social media have a 27% higher risk of depression.
- Teens who spend 5 or more hours a day (versus less than 1) on electronic devices are 51% more likely to get less than 7 hours of sleep (versus the recommended 9).
By now, there is overwhelming evidence that the more kids and teens spend on their devices, the more likely they are to have one or more issues — educational, psychological, emotional, social, and even physical.
It is important to remember that our goal is limitation, not elimination. Balance, not abstinence. In fact, studies have shown that teens who don’t use smartphones at all are a little less happy than those who use a limited amount. Technology is not bad, depending on how we use it.
What Should We Demand?
iPhones are tools, vehicles for us to access information, connect with others, and entertain ourselves. However, unlike real vehicles, iPhones do not have many “safety features”. No seatbelts, no airbags, no auto braking systems.
Just as we expect car companies to provide us with safety features, we should demand Apple for similar responsibility.
Apple was quick to respond to the brewing backlash, highlighting parental controls that it added starting in 2008. But are those enough?
What Can Parents Do Now?
So, what exactly can parents do on the iPhone right now to protect their kids?
With Restrictions, which is what Apple calls its parental controls, you can disable any feature the iPhone. You can prevent your children from accessing apps, services, or content that you don’t want them to view based on age ranges (4+, 9+, 12+, 17+). You can also prevent them from sharing their location, joining multiplayer games, making in-app purchases, and more.
Here’s how to to do it:
- Tap Settings > General > Restrictions
- Scroll down and tap Restrictions, then tap Enable Restrictions.
- Create a Restrictions passcode. You need your Restrictions passcode to change your settings or to turn off Restrictions.
Once you’ve enabled Restrictions, you can turn off and on access to Facetime, the camera, iTunes, and others.
Under the “Allowed Content” section of Restrictions, you can control the age-specific ratings for movies, TV shows, books, apps, and websites. Under the Websites tab, you can choose to allow your child to see all websites, limit access to adult content, or only see specific websites.
Restrictions also offer privacy controls so you can prevent your kids from sharing their location or sharing photos with location information embedded on them, for example.
Is this enough?
That’s about it for parental controls on the iPhone. Can Apple do better? Yes, much much better.
For one, these parental controls are a blunt object. You can only turn them on or off. You can’t place time restrictions or schedule access for certain times of the day or days of the week. You can’t limit how much time they can spend on specific apps and websites. After all, there is nothing wrong with YouTube or Netflix, but hours on end on those is unacceptable.
There’s also no way to monitor how much time your kids are spending online or consuming specific apps and websites. So you’ll never know if they spent five hours on Instagram or five minutes on Wikipedia researching their homework.
I agree with the critics. Apple needs to get serious about giving parents more options to promote healthier screen-time habits. It’s good for Apple, and most important, it’s what our children need in the age of distraction.
However, I don’t believe Apple should develop these tools by themselves, they are not the experts. Apple should provide software companies that possess this expertise, like unGlue, with better tools that enable the development of better solutions. Car companies don’t develop seat belts, airbags, and braking systems, they empower other companies to do it. Apple should too.
So is it Apple’s fault our kids are at risk? Maybe not, but it is certainly their responsibility to help.
#digitaladdiction
By Alon Shwartz,
CEO & Co-founder of unGlue and a father of three
http://www.unGlue.com
unGlue is the world’s first collaborative technology that empowers people to manage their digital distraction and screen addiction
This story is published in The Startup, Medium’s largest entrepreneurship publication followed by 300,118+ people.
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