Apple’s New Health Initiative To Address Device Addiction

Launch Of Iphone X At Apple Store Saint Germain In Paris

Source: Chesnot / Getty

Now Apple wants us to use our phones less.

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After major shareholders criticized the addictive nature of the devices, Apple is announcing a new program that will (allegedly) curb everyone’s smartphone dependence.

A letter from investors who own about $2 billion in Apple shares read, “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.”

The letter from the Jana Partners LLC and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System also requested that Apple research how smartphone use can influence mental health issues.

Bloomberg reports:

Apple engineers have been working on an initiative dubbed Digital Health, a series of tools to help users monitor how much time they spend on their devices and inside of certain applications. These details will be bundled into a menu inside of the Settings app in iOS 12, the likely name of Apple’s refreshed mobile operating system, according to people familiar with the plans.

Former Apple exec Tony Gadell said, “We need to have tools and data to allow us to understand how we consume digital media… We need to get finer-grain language and start to understand that an iPhone is just a refrigerator, it’s not the addiction.”

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