UK adults spend 8+ hrs on screens/day, children 6.5 hrs. Don’t ignore the link betw social media use & depression. 34% of people checked Facebook in the last 10 minutes.

Admitting you have an addiction is Step 1.

We need to control our own environment & we need information:

Apple Watches, Google Phones, Facebook, Twitter – they’ve gotten so good at getting us to go for another click, another dopamine hit. They now have a responsibility & need to start helping us track & manage our digital addictions across all usages – phone, laptop, TV etc.

They’re the only ones who can do this –

They need to give access to that information to 3rd-party apps, so that we can manage & limit our time on them, control notifications, etc. There will a lot of great startups that will create useful tools to help us become balanced – digital & analog – again…

With (or without) these tools, it’s up to us to act:

The comments from Fadell come as consumer addiction to technology is top of mind.

Two prominent investors in Apple — Jana Partners LLC and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, or Calstrs — sent a letter to the Cupertino-based tech behemoth on Saturday pointing out the extent to which young people are addicted to their smartphones. (Jana Partners LLC and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, or Calstrs own $2 billion worth of Apple stock.)

“More than 10 years after the iPhone’s release, it is a cliché to point out the ubiquity of Apple’s devices among children and teenagers, as well as the attendant growth in social media use by this group. What is less well known is that there is a growing body of evidence that, for at least some of the most frequent young users, this may be having unintentional negative consequences,” the letter says.

Apple has responded to the letter. Since 2008, parental controls have been available for many Apple products, the company points out.

“Apple has always looked out for kids, and we work hard to create powerful products that inspire, entertain, and educate children while also helping parents protect them online. We lead the industry by offering intuitive parental controls built right into the operating system,” Apple says in a statement shared with CNBC Make It.

“We think deeply about how our products are used and the impact they have on users and the people around them. We take this responsibility very seriously and we are committed to meeting and exceeding our customers’ expectations, especially when it comes to protecting kids.”

Apple did not respond to the claim that adults are also addicted to their technology.

Twitter declined to comment.

Facebook and Google had not responded to request for comment by the time this story was published.

Fadell pressed Apple to respond to the claim for adults, too.

Indeed, Adam Alter, an associate professor at the Stern School of Business at New York University, wrote a book, “Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked,” making the case that in addition to kids, adults are addicted to technology.

“We’re biologically prone to getting hooked on these sorts of experiences. If you put someone in front of a slot machine, their brain will look qualitatively the same as when they take heroin. If you’re someone who compulsively plays video games — not everyone, but people who are addicted to a particular game — the minute you load up your computer, your brain will look like that of a substance abuser,” Alter tells the New York Times. “I find it interesting that the late Steve Jobs said in a 2010 interview that his own children didn’t use iPads.”

Alter uses himself as an example: “I’m addicted to email. I can’t stop checking it. I can’t go to bed at night if I haven’t cleared my inbox. I’ll keep my phone next to my bed, much as I try not to,” says Alter.

“The technology is designed to hook us that way. Email is bottomless. Social media platforms are endless. Twitter? The feed never really ends. You could sit there 24 hours a day and you’ll never get to the end. And so you come back for more and more,” he tells the Times.

And according to Fadell’s tweets, it’s not hard to implement tools that would allow consumers to moderate their usage. He knows it, and so does Apple, he says.

Thx to my friends @apple for your 1st response. It’s not about only kids, adults need them for themselves too. U & I know it’s technically EASY to build usage info & control tools. Looking fwd to many bold announcements @ WWDC in June on this imprtnt topic

This story has been updated to include a response from Twitter.

See also:

How Amazon founder Jeff Bezos went from the son of a teen mom to the world’s richest person, his wealth topping $105 billion

8 ways artificial intelligence is going to change the way you live, work and play in 2018

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