Former Senior VP of Apple Tony Fadell Says Company Needs To Tackle Smartphone Addiction (wired.co.uk) 75
In an op-ed published on Wired, former SVP at Apple Tony Fadell argues that smartphone manufacturers -- Apple in particular -- need to do a better job of educating users about how often they use their mobile phones, and the resulting dangers that overuse might bring about. An excerpt: Take healthy eating as an analogy: we have advice from scientists and nutritionists on how much protein and carbohydrate we should include in our diet; we have standardised scales to measure our weight against; and we have norms for how much we should exercise. But when it comes to digital "nourishment", we don't know what a "vegetable", a "protein" or a "fat" is. What is "overweight" or "underweight"? What does a healthy, moderate digital life look like? I think that manufacturers and app developers need to take on this responsibility, before government regulators decide to step in -- as with nutritional labelling. Interestingly, we already have digital-detox clinics in the US. I have friends who have sent their children to them. But we need basic tools to help us before it comes to that. I believe that for Apple to maintain and even grow its customer base it can solve this problem at the platform level, by empowering users to understand more about how they use their devices. To do this, it should let people track their digital activity in detail and across all devices.
Re: (Score:2)
Is personal responsibility really that foreign of a concept?
Yes, yes it is. Its never the person's fault. Its never their bad decisions. Its never a lack of self-control. Society made than instant gratification addicts.
Re: (Score:2)
I'd think the over-pricing of the Apple iPhones would be enough to curb addicts....
Re: (Score:2)
Here is a theory.
I do not think that the anger is with the high price, but with the perception that the high price translates into high quality, and the perception that unless you are proudly displaying an Apple product, you are a penniless peasant who cannot afford the real deal.
There are many competitor products that are significantly powerful, and infinitely more customizeable. Sure, Macs may be great out of the box - "they just work", or whatever... but I know that for gaming, software development, and
Re: (Score:2)
Here is a theory.
I do not think that the anger is with the high price, but with the perception that the high price translates into high quality, and the perception that unless you are proudly displaying an Apple product, you are a penniless peasant who cannot afford the real deal.
I don't know ANYONE who feels this way - no matter how much they dislike Apple products. It sounds a lot more like projecting one's on insecurities on to others to me.
Re: (Score:2)
Sure.
My point was that for virtually any position X, there are numerous cases where X doesn't hold. Therefore, someone holding position X is hardly a reason to make wholesale judgements, such as people are angry at Apple because SOME people may have the "perception that unless you are proudly displaying an Apple product, you are a penniless peasant who cannot afford the real deal." I mean, who the fuck cares? There are plenty of people who DON'T feel that way. Furthermore, there are plenty of people who
Re: Umm... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I do not think that the anger is with the high price, but with the perception that the high price translates into high quality, and the perception that unless you are proudly displaying an Apple product, you are a penniless peasant who cannot afford the real deal.
I have a pricey Macbook Air sitting here that spontaneously developed bright spots all over the screen, apparently a common issue that Apple tries to blame on customer mishandling, but there is no shortage of evidence that it is just crap quality control. WTF?
Re: (Score:2)
If you are with a group of people, friends, workmates, a date, etc........and you raise your head up from your phone and everyone is GONE, then it is time to put the fucking phone DOWN.....
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You are aware that beer companies constantly tell people not to drink and drive, right?
Drink and drive is a decision made by the consumer.
I think in this case, Apple would like to refrain from admitting that their devices may cause addiction and harm their customers
So brave. So brave.... (Score:3)
Oh, lord. These tech execs falling all over themselves to tell us how much they hate their own products.
Puke.
Please just sell us more and let us decide for ourselves, instead of telling us "Your'e doing it wrong!" Shut up and give me more shiny things to play with.
Need parenting clinics (Score:2, Insightful)
If a child is "addicted" to mobile devices, it's an issue with parenting. Maybe the parent is "addicted" as well. In any case, trying to un-addict the child is like treating final-stage cancer, whereas promoting prevention measures (ie, teaching good parenting) would likely be much more successful.
Re: (Score:3)
But what "good" parenting?
Forcing the children to go to church and indoctrinating them into the various religious cults out there ? (Christianity, Islam, etc.)
Spare the rod and spoil the child ?
Living wages and decent hours so parents have the time and energy to spend with their kids and actually raise them ?
Re:Need parenting clinics (Score:4, Insightful)
However.....when these things were the norm We didn't see teachers in classrooms having to make keeping order in class their main undertaking each day...rather, they were able to TEACH.
Those ideals and methods you seem to try to disparage...when they were the norm for US society, sure did seem to work...
And as they've been tossed aside, you see the plethora of problems we now have.
Just sayin'.....I've observed both manners of raising youth and have seen the massive negative change over time.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If a child is "addicted" to mobile devices, it's an issue with parenting.
Talking about addiction: to the extent that marketing teams directly target children, society & the law do not agree with you. Reduced personal responsibility and bad parenting are being enabled by tech, by creating virtual baby-sitting spaces and putting "switches" & "gates" on entire domains of human activity, giving social designers great big attenuating knobs to dial in desired results. So seriously, how is good parenting taught and promoted (I agree with you)?
Well that's an odd way of describing him... (Score:5, Interesting)
I find it odd that he's referred to as "former SVP at Apple Tony Fadell" rather than by his most recent major stint as the "co-founder and former CEO of Nest who was forcibly ousted after squandering hundreds of millions of Google's dollars". It strikes me as a flagrant attempt by Wired to avoid undermining the credibility of the source who is giving them material that makes for a sensationalist headline.
To be fair, Fadell's prior work—both with founding Nest and prior to that at Apple with the iPod and iPhone—is outstanding, but, so far as I've seen, he really has rested on his laurels for the last few years as the worldhas passed him by, so I'm not sure why we should be listening to what he has to say now.
Re: (Score:2)
It's a bullshit comparison (Score:4, Interesting)
But when it comes to digital "nourishment", we don't know what a "vegetable", a "protein" or a "fat" is. What is "overweight" or "underweight"? What does a healthy, moderate digital life look like?
Sorry.... ALL that is nonsensical. What is unhealthy is when you have a habit that is (1) Beyond your Control, and (2) Causes harm or prevents you from pursuing goals.
"Using a smartphone" is not one thing ---- there are MANY different things you could be doing, some of the things you do could be productive, some of them less-so, some may sharpen some skills or abilities, some may be fairly useless such as exchanging funny cat memes on social media: on the other hand, some of the things you do on a smartphone could be highly critical to meeting your goals, for example personal development/app-based education or training, scheduling business meetings, business transactions performed on the phone: If your entire work/career/job can fit into things done on your phone then you could justify 8 hours, no problem.
How often and how long you can use a smartphone: depends on where you are in life, and what you hope to achieve.
Most of us have many responsibilities and things we need to get done every week and a limited number of hours per day to get things done, And if we're not productive enough and not getting the important things done because one activity is eating up all the available time, THEN that's a problem, and we need to make a change.
OTHERWISE it's a subjective choice --- how much of your entertainment/free time do you want to spend in an app. Maybe you're concerned about relationships and SmartPhone usage taking time away from that - Well, there's no exact formula for that..... Maybe you chose to stay single; do you really think going out to drink at random bars could be healthier than staying at home and playing a game? If you're in a relationship --- how much time you should spend focused on a significant other or friend or family per week; that's different for every relationship, and how fulfilling people want it to be, And nobody outside has the right to tell you what that balance has to be. Same goes for how much time you're staring at a little screen per week.
Re: (Score:2)
I have an app that lets me scan bar codes which I use at work, I also receive work email. The thing I use my cell phone for most is making and receiving calls and I really don't use it much at outside of work.
My wife used to manage a convenience store she has had to fire people because they wouldn't stop texting, snapchat, and posting on facebook while at work. If it keeps you from holding down a job then it's probably time to seek professional help.
Re: (Score:2)
they wouldn't stop texting, snapchat, and posting on facebook while at work.
Frivolous social media usage (FB, Snap) while working are BIG no-nos. A couple times a day while on break may be OKAY, but not while you are on the clock and there are things to do. During those times, even 20 minutes is not appropriate.
Re: (Score:2)
prevents you from pursuing goals.
Being able to spend more time on the cell phone is the goal.
Re: (Score:2)
Luckily for you, nobody is telling you what that balance has to be.
Re: Wasn't taught about books (Score:2)
Introducing Apple Electric Shock (Score:2)
The next iPhone will produce an electric shock through its case if you pick the phone up more than twice an hour or hold it longer than a minute. Perhaps it will give you 15 second delay just in case you are actually making a phone call in which case it will disable the shock until the call is ended.
Re: (Score:2)
not Apple's problem (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Funny he chose protein and sugar (Score:2, Offtopic)
It's funny he chose protein and carbs as his example, because protein and sugar are the two things that food producers DON'T tell us how much we are eating. Go ahead, pick up the closest packaged food to you and look at the nutrition label. Protein and sugar are the only items that don't have a % daily value. Food producers don't put those numbers on there because they don't want their Snickers bars to have to say "3000%" recommended daily intake of sugar. Same with protein. Meat packers don't want to tell
Re: (Score:2)
Before government regulators decide to step in... (Score:2)
I think that manufacturers and app developers need to take on this responsibility, before government regulators decide to step in -- as with nutritional labelling (sic).
I'm pretty sure the powers that be like the zombified masses, they're easier to manipulate. "Don't worry about thinking for yourself, keep up that Twitter #slacktivism!"
Even if they did step in, all they're going to do is put a warning label on the box: "Warning: Cell phones can be addictive!" Right below that will be a second warning for CA residents: "Cell phones have been shown to cause cancer in California."
Yes, let's make a product people find irresistible (Score:2)
And books, too! And newspapers! (Score:4, Insightful)
How much novel reading or stock research is healthy? It's not the phones, just like it's not the guns, and not the spoons.
Re: (Score:2)
My favorite picture that someone unearthed: http://thefuturebuzz.com/wp-co... [thefuturebuzz.com]
From http://thefuturebuzz.com/2014/... [thefuturebuzz.com]
Re: And books, too! And newspapers! (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Why? (Score:2)
Just become some people are too stupid/lazy/weak that they can't pull their noses away from their phones that's Apple/Samsung's fault?
What the fuck is wrong with people that they believe this shit?
Hmm (Score:2)
Do donut manufacturers agonize over donut addiction?
Do we expect them to?
They've created no alternative (Score:2)
I would love to move back to a feature phone. Unfortunately, there is no feature phone I can find that has a camera as good as an iPhone 4, let alone a S9 or iPhone 8. A feature phone built like an iPhone SE (touch screen, same form factor and with a solid camera) and that can install some restaurant apps would be a great detox setup.
nah (Score:2)
Safer interfaction (Score:2)
I think that phones could definitely become safer, not just through better education in how to use them but also through how the phone interacts with the user.
This is something that Apple, Google (and others makers of "Smartphone" OS:es) could do better.
For instance, if a phone detects movement it should either require that a handsfree/sync is connected or ask for confirmation that the user is not driving a vehicle.
Make the exception an app entitlement and approve for your app store only those where that en