Apple Epidemic by Hoa Luu

Apple was created in 1976, and since then has become the most widely known company of the modern era (Apple Computer, Inc.). However, is Apple’s sales taking away our social skills and livelihood? Einstein once said, “I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots,” which is depicting our generation’s reliance on Apple products and technology in general (Quote Investigator). Apple’s firm grasp over society is an epidemic because of the fact that its products are located virtually everywhere, whether it be in our pockets, or in front of our very own faces, but one thing is clear, we cannot live without them.

Apple has been around for decades, however our generation has had an increasingly amount of reliance on technology over the years, which has in turn, started an outrageous Apple epidemic. Apple was originally created by two drop out students named Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, which is ironic, considering how they have successfully made one of the most revolutionary company of the 20^th century (The story of Apple, 1976-2016: It's time to brush up on your history). They initially met at a Homebrew Computer Club, a gathering of enthusiasts at California’s Menlo Park and eventually created the Apple 1 from their garage (The story of Apple, 1976-2016: It's time to brush up on your history). They both started out by hand building each computer in the back of their garage and even forced immediate family members to help construct their new product (Apple 1) because of their lack of money at hand and no profits at the time.

"Jobs and Woz didn't have two nickels to rub together," Wayne told NextShark in 2013 (The story of Apple, 1976-2016: It's time to brush up on your history). Portraying their lack of profit throughout the Apple 1 phase, they both knew that in order for their business to survive, they must create something new, something cutting-edge, something the world has never seen before (The story of Apple, 1976-2016: It's time to brush up on your history). The Apple II debuted at the West Coast Computer Faire of April 1977, and was an immediate top competitor and is attributed as one of the reasons of how Apple was able to succumb all other contestants and how it has directly impacted the lives of many (The story of Apple, 1976-2016: It's time to brush up on your history). Apple started off as a run of the mill company, with little hope of surviving its uber-competitive market that started out in the back of a drop-outs garage, but what it has built is absolutely astonishing and revolutionizing (The story of Apple, 1976-2016: It's time to brush up on your history).

Apple has asserted itself as one of the most dominant competitors in all of electronic history, and this has effectively created an empire in which Apple reigns supreme. An instance of Apple’s dominance over the technology industry is purely its production, profit, and availability. According to a recent 2012 study, apple has sold an outrageous 340,000 iPhones per DAY, which equals out to over 4 million iPhones sold in that year alone (31 Facts about Apple)! Another intriguing fact is that Apple makes 300,000 per MINUTE, so by the time you finish reading this sentence, Apple has made a shocking profit of $300,000 (31 Facts about Apple)! The final illustration of Apple’s supremacy is purely based on how many people have/rely on Apple products. For example, it is virtually impossible to go into a store, city, home, school, or even a movie theatre, without seeing someone using an Apple product, whether it be an iPhone, iPad, or even a Mac laptop.

No matter how much people may argue that Apple products are not an epidemic, facts do not lie. During the first quarter of 2015, Apple amassed a record breaking 75.9 BILLION dollars of revenue, keep in mind that was merely a fraction of its 2015 revenue (Apple celebrates record revenue of $75.9 billion; iPhone sales up a fraction)! Now, how can we fix this revolutionary epidemic? Some options may be to have celebrity endorsements (to set example-like trends), encouraging parents, and even resorting to have a dictatorship-like restriction on our technology reliance.

            Celebrity endorsements may be the best route in order to inhibit Apple products in their tracks. An example of this is the NFL’s “Play 60.” Although its campaign was created to prevent childhood obesity, programs like these that let children/teenagers engage in social activities may be the best way to counteract the increasingly apparent technology dependence that we all have in some way (NFL PLAY 60: The NFL Movement For An Active Generation). Even in recent studies, it’s apparent that celebrity endorsements help immensely with advertisements and costumer consumption. According to a 2010 survey, on average products typically see a 20 percent increase in product consumption when they apply this celebrity endorsement strategy (Celebrity Endorsements Still Push Product). “Therefore, practice has it that if you use a celebrity-endorsement strategy, you dramatically accelerate the potential for your brand to reach the conscious mind of the consumer,” further depicting the advantages of using this solution in order to prevent further dependence on Apple products and technology in general (Celebrity Endorsements Still Push Product).

            Another intriguing solution to thwart Apple’s plans of complete social destruction of young children/teenagers is to convince parents that this is a problem that only they themselves as role models of their pre-adolescent teens can fix. Having encouraging parents is something all children at a young age should have, and in order to de-escalate the epidemic at hand, they must be willing to let their children engage in extra-curricular activities, hobbies, social events, or even restrict Apple usage/reliance in their respective households. Willing parents may be the only real solution to stop the spread of Apple. For example, if kids are having fun playing sports such as football or basketball, they will not feel persuaded to use their phones or laptops, because they have discovered that they can have much more entertainment without the use of an iPhone or iMac! Another example can be to restrict the usage of cell phones, during a set time period at home, like dinner time or bedtime. Similarly, if parents can convince their young children to develop hobbies outside the realm of technology it can halt Apple’s dominance over our free time.

            An alternative measure to further prevent the widespread use of Apple technology, is to take a page from North Korea and become a dictatorship. Realistically this is not possible in any way, but theoretically this would be the MOST effective way to stop Apple technology from spreading. Dictatorships have full reign over all that reside in its boundaries. Having complete and absolute control over the use of technology can halt the deateriation of social interactions by limiting the use of it. Setting a time to use technology or completely stripping all technology in general can be beneficial to end our natural reliance over a bright, $700 screen. Now for all the benefits this might have, there are also obvious downsides. For one, it’s a dictatorship-like government which can abuse its power over us, see North Korea for example. Or two, it can cause technology to be even more popular then it is now. Why? Because our generation’s thought process considers breaking the law, or rebelling against something as “cool,” rather than idiotic, thus hypothetically popularizing Apple products even more so.

Throughout this essay you might start to realize how absurd the situation at hand really is. Is technology, a human invention, really taking control of our lives? Is it really destroying our social lives? Do we truly rely on Apple products to the point where we cannot live without it? Are we really allowing such feeble inventions reign supreme over us? These are questions you must think about next time you pick up your iPhone, iMac, or iPod…is it really worth it?

However, now that we are on the topic of absurdity why not bring up Camus, the father of this genre. If he was alive today he would probably would have said something along the lines of “The absurd is not in man nor in the world, but in their presence together…it is the only bond uniting them (Albert Camus (1913—1960)).” His views on absurdity is truly ground-breaking, he would have chosen to simply embrace our technical reliance because of how unavoidable it truly is. Life, he says, can “be lived all the better if it has no meaning, “depicting that if we view the Apple epidemic as meaningless, then it will just be that…meaningless (Albert Camus (1913—1960)).

Einstein once said, “I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots,” which is depicting our generation’s increasingly reliance on Apple products and technology in general (Quote Investigator). Apple’s firm grasp over society is an epidemic because of the fact that its products are located virtually everywhere, whether it be in our pockets, or in front of our very own faces, but one thing is clear, we cannot live without them.