Want Apple to be less cultish

Apple shareholders, who do not really understand what they have been buying, want Jobs’ Mob to stop encouraging product addiction.

This might seem a little odd as Apple has basically made a fortune convincing people to buy and upgrade their products each year and Apple shareholders have been made very rich from their actions.

Apple shareholders Jana Partners and the California State Teachers’ Retirement System are urging the smartphone maker to take steps to address what they say is a growing problem of young people getting addicted to iPhones, Jana partner Charles Penner said.

Note, they did not say addicted to technology or even mobile phones, but specifically Apple iPhones.

Jana, a leading activist shareholder, and CalSTRS, one of the nation’s largest public pension plans, delivered a letter to Apple on Saturday asking the company to consider developing software that would allow parents to limit children’s iPhone use, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Jana and CalSTRS also asked Apple to study the impact of excessive iPhone use on mental health.

Jana and CalSTRS together control about $2 billion worth of Apple shares, the Journal reports so Apple might have to at least pretend to be interested.

It is rather a new thing for Jana to push social changes in companies. It is better known for pushing companies it invests in to make financial changes.

However, parents in the US are apparently worried that they can’t get their kids to give up their iPhones. We would have thought that not buying them would be the answer. CalSTRS and Jana worry that Apple’s reputation and stock could be hurt if it does not address those concerns, according to the Journal.

It all started to get serious when Apple fangirl Selena Gomez, 24, cancelled a 2016 world tour to go to therapy for depression and low self-esteem, feelings she linked to her addiction to social media and the mobile photo-sharing app Instagram. To be fair to Apple she also once went out with Justin Bieber which is enough to make anyone depressed.