Two major Apple investors urge action to help curb smartphone addiction in kids

Two major Apple investors have called on the iPhone maker to help counter the growing smartphone addiction among children, highlighting growing concern about the effects of gadgets and social media on youngsters.

New York-based Jana Partners LLC and the California State Teachers' Retirement System, or CalSTRS, yesterday said in an open letter to Apple that the company needed to offer more choices and tools to help children fight addiction to its devices.

"There is a developing consensus around the world including Silicon Valley that the potential long-term consequences of new technologies need to be factored in at the outset, and no company can outsource that responsibility," the letter said. "Apple can play a defining role in signalling to the industry that paying special attention to the health and development of the next generation is both good business and the right thing to do."

The two investors, between them control $2 billion worth of Apple shares.

Their proposals include: establishment of an expert committee including child development specialists, offering Apple's vast information to researchers; and enhancing mobile device software so that parents get more options to protect their children's health.

The letter cited a number of studies and surveys on the negative effects of heavy usage of smartphones and social media on children's mental and physical health.

These include distractions by digital technologies in the classroom, a reduced ability of students to focus on educational tasks, and higher risks of suicide and depression.

''It is also no secret that social media sites and applications for which the iPhone and iPad are a primary gateway are usually designed to be as addictive and time-consuming as possible, as many of their original creators have publicly acknowledged,'' Barry Rosenstein, Jana Partners managing director and Anne Sheehan, CalSTRS director of corporate governance wrote, adding even though an American Psychological Association study found 94 per cent of parents try to manage their kids' technology use, ''it is both unrealistic and a poor long-term business strategy to ask parents to fight this battle alone.''