A new screen in family life - are we inviting a crisis or pioneering a vision of the future?

One product release doest not a crisis make.

One more screen in family life just might?!

Chiming in post WWDC23 feels all horse, gate and bolted.

I’m a huge Apple fan - have been since first using the compact Mac in Biology 101 labs circa way too long ago.

Since then it’s only been Apple. For me, then family, then my own family. We are paid up.

As an ideas guy, you just cannot go by Apple’s strategy of being last, with better - and cleaning up. They’re what they are because of who they are and how they go about it. Unrivalled. Unmatched.

Which is why this kind of image sends global horrors.

Now it might be an over reach that was part of their strategy to place VR at work (productivity) and in the home (entertainment).

But ask any carer what it’s like parenting young people today and the common frustration is the daily fight against ‘screens’. Many have given up - to god knows what unintended consequences down the line re brain wiring and firing, cognitive health, whole person development, etc.

It’s more than frustration - I was out with a mate the other nite and we went deep into righteous anger that the social currency of our kids is now owned by Silicon Valley… yes you can choose as a parent to withhold smartphones and social apps, but you also know you’re removing them from the all important social nurturing and tight friendship groups where handheld, head down, blue light tech is their gateway to connection.

We all sense what this is doing to our kids - the terrifying rise in mental health issues (food, self harm, suicidal ideation, gender, et al) correlates exactly to 2012 and the explosion of ‘compare and despair’ social media for youth. Yes it’s access to knowledge and content that blows all our minds - but on balance?

Science or not, just ask any parent - they’ll tell you - personal screens are ruining family life. It’s not crying wolf - it is a near future crisis!!

And now we have another vision of home life where another screen removes still more of the all important human time.

Obviously this is all still early doors. VR is still looking for a killer app that builds a mass use case - and Apple is clearly hoping their developing community will surface it.

We can marvel at the feats of engineering to produce such incredible kit. I do.

But should this tech find it’s way into home life around the world a la iPods, iPads, iPhones and WTAF?!

Surely time has come to question the future we’re innovating for - and who articulates the accompanying health warnings to educate & inform the widest possible audience?

I saw some comments that business will keep doing what business does - Apple has no responsibility.

Well, perhaps we should paraphrase Patagonia re 'there’s no business to be had on a deal planet' i.e. there’s no family to be had if we’re all hiding in screens.

#parenting #mentalhealth #innovation