Among the hype about Apple Pay transforming our shopping habits, or iOS 8 being Apple's most advanced mobile operating system ever, little has been made of the fact that the new phones, like their predecessors, are set to be cracking children's toys; highly effective distractions on car journeys, handy pacifiers during school holidays, and surrogate virtual-parents for when mum and dad are too busy doing important stuff to engage with their offspring. Thanks Apple, where would we be without you?
In a New York Times article published this week, tech journalist Nick Bilton reveals that Jobs, who died in 2011, was a self-confessed "low-tech parent". When Bilton asked Jobs, in 2010, whether his own kids loved Apple's iPad, Jobs replied: “They haven’t used it. We limit how much technology our kids use at home.”
Bilton reveals that, since his surprising conversation with Jobs, he has had similar discussions with other high-profile figures in the tech industry.
Chris Anderson, a former editor of Wired, told Bilton that he set strict time limits and parental controls on every device at home. "My kids accuse me and my wife of being fascists," he said. "They say that none of their friends have the same rules. That’s because we have seen the dangers of technology first hand. I’ve seen it in myself, I don’t want to see that happen to my kids.”
It seems that Jobs, Anderson and others who extol the virtues of electronic devices, who help convince us that such things are essential parts of our daily lives, had serious concerns over the long-term effects of children engaging with touchscreen technology for lengthy periods.
Researchers at the University of California Los Angelesrecently published a study which concluded that removing gadgets from children for just a few days immediately improves their social skills. An article in Newsweek last month suggested that American children spend more than seven and a half hours a day using smartphones and other electronic screens.
So before we all get too carried away with Apple's latest gizmos, perhaps we should all take our cue from Jobs. According to Walter Isaacson, who spent a lot of time at Jobs' house when they worked on a book together, face-to-face family interaction always came before screentime. "Every evening Steve made a point of having dinner at the big long table in their kitchen, discussing books and history and a variety of things,” Isaacson told Nick Bilton. “No one ever pulled out an iPad or computer. The kids did not seem addicted at all to devices.”