New iPhone and Android tools to fight phone addiction graded by experts: Apple vs Google
We asked three experts on the screen-time debate to give preliminary grades on the new efforts from Apple and Google to curb smartphone addiction. Are these features enough to help us help ourselves?
At its Worldwide Developers Conference early this month, Apple showed off its solution to help iPhone owners use their phones less often.
The company presented more advanced parental controls and unveiled new system features that let people monitor how much they are using their phone.
The new features walk a fine line between answering customers’ concerns about device addiction and developers’ desires to keep people coming back to their apps.
The iPhone maker’s new features followed a January letter from shareholders Jana Partners, a hedge fund, and CalSters (the California State Teachers’ Retirement System) that asked the company to build better controls to help curb tech use.
Google also recently announced new features to limit screen time and monitor use on Android devices, as well as some other options such as being able to turn your phone’s screen to black and white at bedtime. Google has already introduced web-based controls for parents.
Both companies are focusing on offering choices to consumers in the form of more granular settings. The question is whether these features are enough to help us help ourselves.
