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Two major Apple shareholders champions call to curb smartphone addiction among youths and prevent a ‘generation of idiots’

Two Apple investors have urged the iPhone maker to take action in curbing the spate of smartphone addiction among children and teenagers in order to prevent a ‘generation of idiots’.

Jana Partners LLC and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, or CalSTRS, said in an open letter to Apple, that the company must offer more choices and tools that would allow parents limit children’s phone use.

Jana and CalSTRS who collectively own about $2 billion in Apple shares, also asked Apple to study the impact of excessive phone use on mental health.

These shareholders of Apple Inc. are concerned that the captivating qualities of the iPhone have fostered a public health crisis that could hurt children and the company as well.

“There is a growing body of evidence that, for at least some of the most frequent young users, this may be having unintentional negative consequences,” adding that the “growing societal unease at some point is likely to impact even Apple.”

The issue of phone addiction among young people has become a growing concern in the United States and other parts of the world, as parents report children’s inability to give up smart phones. CalSTRS and Jana worry that Apple’s reputation and stock could be hurt if it does not address those concerns.

According to a 2016 survey by Common Sense Media, half of teenagers in the United States feel like they are addicted to their mobile phones and report feeling pressured to immediately respond to phone messages.

Smartphone addiction got a high-profile boost when the former Disney child star Selena Gomez, 24, affirmed that she cancelled a 2016 world tour to go to therapy for depression and low self-esteem, feelings she linked to her addiction to social media and the mobile photo-sharing app, Instagram.

France, for instance, has moved to ban the use of smartphones in its primary and middle schools.

Meanwhile, Android co-founder Andy Rubin is seeking to apply Artificial Intelligence to phones so that they perform relatively routine tasks without needing to be physically handled.

Apple already offers some parental controls such as the ‘Ask to buy’ feature, which requires parental approval to buy goods and services. Restrictions can also be placed on access to some apps, content and data usage.

What are the damaging side effects of your smartphone?

Smartphones are incredible little devices, which allow us to stay connected, organized and entertained.

Research shows that about 2.1 billion persons use a smartphone; two thirds (75%) of American adults now own a smartphone – up from 58% in early 2014. In fact, 61% of those reading this page are probably doing so on a smartphone.

It is the first and last thing most teenagers use each day, whether responding to a text in bed, checking a Facebook update in the bathroom or Tweeting from a classroom, the mobile phone has become an obsession for today’s youth. Most would deny having a problem, while many parents feel powerless in controlling their children’s usage.

According to experts, smartphone addiction also has various negative impact on our emotions, behaviours and health status –

A Serious Addiction

Despite what some may think, smartphone addiction is a very real phenomenon.

It has been found that female college students spend an average of ten hours a day on their cell phones, surfing the internet and sending 100+ messages, that’s more time than spent with friends.

Another survey found that three out of five US smartphone users can’t go more than 60 minutes without checking their phones.

So what makes us so eager to play with our phones instead of engaging in real life?

Experts say our brains get a hit of dopamine and serotonin – the chemicals linked to happiness – when our phones beep or ring. These are the same chemicals that give drug users the ‘high’!

Nomophobia (the fear of being without your mobile device) is now recognized as a serious issue, with rehab facilities available to help deal with this problem!

Nerve Damage

Smartphones don’t just affect your health on a day-to-day basis – they may also cause long term, incurable side effects.

Like Occipital neuralgia – a neurological condition where the nerves that run from the top of the spinal cord up through the scalp become compressed or inflamed.

This condition causes symptoms similar to those you’d experience with a severe headache or migraine.

A journalist diagnosed with the condition described it as being ‘hit over the head with a rod of steel’ sending ‘bolts of pain’ through his skull.

Unfortunately, there is no cure for occipital neuralgia, only treatments to manage the pain which include steroid and numbing injections, yoga, massage and laying off the smartphone usage.

High risk of depression and loneliness

Keeping oneself busy with internet and smartphone for a long period of time can make one feel lonely and depressed. The feeling can even become worse if you don’t stop using one’s cell phone extensively.

A study from North-western University revealed that the more time people spend on their phones, the more likely they are to be depressed.

Increased stress

Using smartphones for official purpose at home means that you still haven’t logged off from your work, even after arriving home.

This creates a bar of communication between you and your family. Checking emails and responding to them continuously will automatically increase one’s stress level, it is crucial to take a break from one’s smartphone usage and spend some time with friends and family after office hours.

Disrupted Sleep

Around 63% of smartphone users age 18- 29 falls asleep with a cell phone, smartphone or tablet in bed, says a 2013 survey.

Around 30% of users aged 30 – 64 do the same thing.

According to a study published in September 2015, the amount of caffeine in a double espresso has less effect on sleep schedule, than bright light exposure at night.

While most of us wouldn’t bring a double espresso to bed, we happily bring our phones.

The light exposure can actually push back sleep time twice as long as coffee does, thanks to its ability to suppress melatonin, the hormone that helps with sleep timing.

When Harvard researchers looked at the effect of 6.5 hours of exposure to blue light, and to green light, they found that the blue light suppressed melatonin twice as long as the green did.

The blue also shifted sleep schedules by three hours, compared to an hour and a half for the green light.

Hearing

According to research, about 40 million adults worldwide suffer from noise-induced hearing loss.

One source of such noise is from headphones, like the ones that come with phones.

If we listen to music that is too loud, we can damage the tiny hairs in the inner ear, which transmit chemical signals through nerves to the brain.

What level is too loud?

The Dangerous Decibels Public Health campaign states that repeated exposure to noise above 85 decibels can cause hearing loss – approximately the noise level of heavy traffic.

The maximum volume of a smartphone is around 105 decibels – or that of a concert. Listening to music at this volume for more than four minutes would likely result in damage to hearing.

Even if you reduce it to just 94 decibels, you can still cause damage if you listen for over an hour. Here are the average decibel ratings of some familiar sounds:

The humming of a refrigerator--45 decibels

Normal conversation–60 decibels

Noise from heavy city traffic--85 decibels

Motorcycles--95 decibels

An MP3 player at maximum volume–105 decibels

Sirens–120 decibels

Firecrackers and firearms–150 decibels

Social Effects

“I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots,” a quote attributed to Physicist Albert Einstein, whether he said it or not, is quite immaterial.

Einstein wrote in a letter to his friend, psychiatrist Otto Juliusburger, in 1948, “I believe that the abominable deterioration of ethical standards stems primarily from the mechanization and depersonalization of our lives, a disastrous by-product of science and technology, Nostra culpa!”

Instead of making us more connected, our smartphones actually could be making us more isolated.

Not only are we more distracted and less ‘present’ in social scenarios because of our cell phones, we’re also becoming less connected to our peers on a deeper level.

Researchers from the University of Essex found that people who discussed personally meaningful topics when a cell phone was nearby reported lower relationship quality and less trust in their partner.

They also felt their partner was less empathic to their concerns.

Smartphone use is also likely to make us more selfish, and less likely to engage in ‘prosocial’ behaviour, says University of Maryland research.

Prosocial behaviour is defined as an action intended to benefit another person or society as a whole – like volunteering or simply helping out someone in need.

Diminished concentration

The beep or ping notification sounds from your phone can distract you from any kind of important task and also cause lack of concentration and hamper your creative skills.

According to studies, the level of creativity in a majority of people has diminished due to heavy smartphone usage. Previously people used to engage themselves in different types of interactive activities like singing, painting, childhood games, etc. But now, most of which have been ruined by excessive mobile phone usage.

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