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Apple needs to tackle the issue of smartphone addiction

wired.co.uk

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Re: Apple needs to tackle the issue of smartphone addiction

#2

Post by dayjah »

In general, I agree strongly with this sentiment:

> 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 a bicyclist and driver I believe one of the best ways to enact this would be add a feature that allows investigators / insurers to answer the question of “whether the device was I use at the time of an accident”.

I’ve taken to yelling “get of your effing phone” at drivers obviously looking down at devices while I’m driving, walking or cycling around; I think the phone doing that would be more efficient.

Re: Apple needs to tackle the issue of smartphone addiction

#3

Post by cryptoz »

Tony Fadell says,

> I think that manufacturers and app developers need to take on this responsibility, before government regulators decide to step in.

Tim Cook recently said, "I think the best regulation is no regulation, is self-regulation". And Tony Fadell expresses a similar idea here. That no regulation is the best idea and that companies should "behave" so that the status quo of no regulation continues.

But how do they keep these opinions in the face of all the enormous evidence that companies are very specifically designed to be unable to self-regulate? The very structure of a corporation today means it is incentivized to sneak by and almost break as many laws as possible to be short-term profitable. This is incongruent with long-term health, growth, capitalism, and everything else, because it is a strong forcing factor towards very bad corporate behaviour. Constantly lobbying for "no regulation" or to act quickly before those big-bad-regulators come in to protect consumers from poison and addiction makes no sense.

Companies will behave badly as long as the law allows it. Suggesting that the companies should behave better while suggesting that there should be absolutely no consequence for bad behaviour legally is a bizarre doubethink. I don't get it.

Re: Apple needs to tackle the issue of smartphone addiction

#4

Post by LeicaLatte »

Legitimizing smartphone addiction is the main reason why Apple will never put a dark mode in iOS. Atleast I hope they don't. It has never been a personal problem (I am carrying my own bunch of bad habits) but I hate watching friends, partners constantly checking their phones in the night.

Re: Apple needs to tackle the issue of smartphone addiction

#5

Post by whitepoplar »

I think smartphone use has split into two paths: utility and "discovery." Utilities are the tools we use every day, the tools we want to be stable, fast, and (relatively) unchanging. E.g. sms, maps, browser, phone, camera, email. "Discovery" is all the new, unstable, changing stuff. I think there's an enormous market for a utility smartphone...and it doesn't even have to be a smartphone. Something between an old Nokia and an iPhone, but still a precision-crafted, luxury device.

Re: Apple needs to tackle the issue of smartphone addiction

#7

Post by ghostbrainalpha »

LeicaLatte wrote: post #4

Legitimizing smartphone addiction is the main reason why Apple will never put a dark mode in iOS. Atleast I hope they don't. It has never been a personal problem (I am carrying my own bunch of bad habits) but I hate watching friends, partners constantly checking their phones in the night.

What do you mean by 'dark mode'?

I turned my screen black and white, which supposedly lessens the addictiveness. You can also invert the colors for cool matrix like effect... if you are into 90's Winamp Themes.

Re: Apple needs to tackle the issue of smartphone addiction

#8

Post by TeMPOraL »

cryptoz wrote: post #3

Tony Fadell says, > I think that manufacturers and app developers need to take on this responsibility, before government regulators decide to step in. Tim Cook recently said, "I think the best regulation is no regulation, is self-regulation". And Tony Fadell expresses a similar idea here. That no regulation is the best idea and that companies should "behave" so that the status quo of no regulation continues. But how…

Just wishful thinking. It's true that best regulation is self-regulation, and it's also true that companies in general are unable to self-regulate.

A recently discussed clear example of that is privacy in the EU - the original cookie law was a gentle nudge to encourage the market to self-regulate. The market didn't, so now we have GDPR.

Re: Apple needs to tackle the issue of smartphone addiction

#9

Post by jryle80 »

cryptoz wrote: post #3

Tony Fadell says, > I think that manufacturers and app developers need to take on this responsibility, before government regulators decide to step in. Tim Cook recently said, "I think the best regulation is no regulation, is self-regulation". And Tony Fadell expresses a similar idea here. That no regulation is the best idea and that companies should "behave" so that the status quo of no regulation continues. But how…

> The very structure of a corporation today means it is incentivized to sneak by and almost break as many laws as possible to be short-term profitable

Can you elaborate on how corporation today are structured toward short term profitability? and how we can change it to balance between "do no evil" vs. profitability?

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