Apple Facing Huge Pressure From Major Investors To Address Youth Smartphone Addiction

It’s no secret that modern society is facing a bit of an epidemic with regards to tech addiction, with smartphones being a particularly huge example. Now, Apple is facing pressure from its own investors to address the problem or risk damage to its reputation. One of these investors apparently wants to increase the control that parents can have on their children’s iPhones.

The shareholders, in question, are not so much people as they are organizations. Both the Jana Partners LLC and the California State Teachers' Retirement System (CalSTRS) are pressuring Apple to take steps in order to mitigate the rising trend of smartphone addiction among young people, the Financial Times reports.

As one of the leading activist investors in the U.S., Jana is known to advocate for change in companies it is invested in. Together with CalSTRS, the companies sent the iPhone maker a letter, urging it to develop a software that would provide parents significantly more control over the devices of their children.

“In partnership with experts including Dr. Michael Rich, founding director of the Center on Media and Child Health at Boston Children’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School Teaching Hospital and Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, and Professor Jean M. Twenge, psychologist at San Diego State University and author of the book iGen, we have reviewed the evidence and we believe there is a clear need for Apple to offer parents more choices and tools to help them ensure that young consumers are using your products in an optimal manner,” the letter reads.

Together, the two investors make up $2 billion of Apple’s shares, the Wall Street Journal reports, which makes them a significant force in the system. It would appear that this is also part of Jana’s preparations for a planned funding round, which is intended to raise several billion dollars to invest in companies that are basically more socially responsible.