At the conclusion of every recent lazy Sunday has come an unwelcomed reminder of my current technology addiction.  Depending on the severity of the average amount of screen time, I tell myself that this will be the week that I kick my iPhone addiction.  Unfortunately, by Wednesday of most weeks, I dread swiping right on my phone so that I don’t accidentally see how much time I have wasted that day.  I take little solace in Apple’s euphemisms of “Social Networking” and “Productivity” that attempt to make the blatant time wasters stomachable.  Moreover, I highly doubt that before the screen time notifications began people did not know that they had a problem.

Given my many failed attempts to decrease my screen time, why haven’t I turned off the screen time from being calculated?  Admitting defeat is part of it.  In reality, the same reason I fail to conquer my phone addiction every week is also why I never turn off the screen time feature: inertia.  It’s hard to break the addiction.  So why did Apple begin inundating its users with data shaming for how well they have done at addicting their customers?  More likely, they knew there would be a day of reckoning and they want the insurance of plausible deniability in light of accusations from the potential health critics of the world.  In the world of metrics, the statistics associated with this unwelcome Screen Time notification are startling. There are three additional categories associated.  The Most Used function will alert the user to the amount of time spent on each app throughout one’s day and from the past seven days.  The Pickups feature will track how often the user picks up their phone and what apps they pick up their phone the most for.  The last tracks your quantity of notifications and attempts to surprise you with a shocking number.  Not only has Apple decided to shame your usage of their products, but they also have put in-depth research into your personal habits.

As a society, we constantly are being told that we are addicted to that technology supplied to make our lives easier.  Maybe those who scold us actually care, but when your life and daily routine is interconnected with your phone, how can you actually not be using it more?  Phones are a source of communication, entertainment, education and so much more.  Truly , the cell phone is a major aspect of the life of an individual in the twenty-first century.  Instead of scolding us for our addiction, those who see a problem should realize the beauty of technological innovation that comes with our increased involvement in our cellular devices.  Maybe it is still possible to remove our society from its technological dependence, but this new iPhone shaming method is not the panacea it should be.