A surprising technology critic

Following up on last week’s editorial about our dependence on technology to the point of having very little face-to-face interaction anymore.

It turns out that someone else––a very unlikely and surprising someone else––saw the danger of reliance on personal technology devices years ago and did something about it within his own household.

Apple’s former CEO Steve Jobs, whose vision and leadership were largely responsible for the more innovative and groundbreaking devices that brought us to where we are today, didn’t allow his own children to use some of Apple’s most common products like the iPhone and iPad.

In a New York Times story published last week, author Nick Bilton recalls asking Jobs back in 2010––Steve Jobs died in 2011––how his kids liked the iPod. He was taken aback when Jobs replied, “They haven’t used it. We limit how much technology our kids use at home.”

Walter Isaacson, who authored a biography of Steve Jobs and spent much time at Jobs’ home in the process, confirmed that face-to-face interaction always came first with Jobs’ family.

“Every evening Steve made a point of having dinner at the big long table in their kitchen, discussing books and history and a variety of things. No one ever pulled out an iPad or computer. The kids did not seem addicted at all to devices,” Isaacson wrote.

Many kids today seem to be, however, as many parents use devices like iPhones and iPads as surrogate babysitters to keep their chldren entertained or distracted. In fact, recent research showed that an average American child spends more than seven and a half hours a day using smart-phones and other electronic screens.

This does affect social skills negatively. UCLA researchers recently published a study that demonstrated that just a few days after abstaining from using electronic gadgets, children’s social skills improved immediately.

Steve Jobs, even while he was pitching his latest and greatest creation, recognized the danger of overusing his products.