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An iPhone charging at night

Apple has just issued a service announcement warning people that sleeping on a charging device could lead to fire, electric shock, injury, or damage to the phone or property. This is big news: nearly 1.5 million people worldwide are iPhone users, and according to a survey, 64% of those who live in America charge their phones while they sleep.

That means every night, somewhere around a billion people are at some risk, however statistically small, of starting a fire.

Apple says that its phone and USB power adaptors can become hot while charging, which may lead to discomfort or injury. “Use common sense to avoid situations where your skin is in contact with a device, its power adapter, or a wireless charger when it’s operating or connected to a power source for long periods of time,” the statement reads. “For example, don’t sleep on a device, power adapter, or wireless charger, or place them under a blanket, pillow, or your body, when it’s connected to a power source. Keep your iPhone, the power adapter, and any wireless charger in a well-ventilated area when in use or charging.”


Apple also warns against charging a phone near liquids and asks users to discard damaged chargers immediately. "Using damaged cables or chargers, or charging when moisture is present, can cause fire, electric shock, injury, or damage to iPhone or other property," the company said in a statement.

Additionally, Apple cautioned users about the heightened risk of fire when using third-party chargers, noting that some cheaper chargers might not meet the safety standards of Apple's official products. The company advises using chargers paired with “Made for iPhone” cables that adhere to global safety norms.

The tech giant isn’t the only one sounding the alarm about overnight charging dangers. A fire department in Kent, England, has also warned iPhone users about the risks of sleep-charging.

"We get a lot of questions here at Kent Fire & Rescue about why you shouldn't charge phones overnight," the fire expert warned in a viral TikTok video. ”So here are the reasons why. Number one: you can't smell anything when you're asleep, so if it starts to burn, the fire won't wake you up. Number two: it only takes three breaths of smoke to knock you unconscious. Number three: lots of people have cheap or faulty phone chargers, but even genuine ones have been known to start fires.”

Even though Apple and a fire department have warned about charging at night, changing the public’s habits will be hard. Those who want to see the real dangers of charging a phone at night look no further than this video of an iPhone 4, all by itself, catching a blaze at a home in Green Township, Ohio.

Older iPhones are more likely to catch fire because their lithium batteries become larger with age. A chemical reaction inside the battery provides power, but the chemical reaction can fail over time and create a gas. "We were extremely lucky to avoid a house fire," Brian Leisgang told WCPO. "Luckily we had just cleaned off the counter."

Photo by Tyler Lastovich on Unsplash

The hardest words to say are, "I'm sorry," but Apple (surprisingly) doesn't have a problem saying them after a whistleblower revealed that human strangers were listening to your private conversations. Apple commendably went a step further and actually fixed the issue that makes it feel like your phone is eavesdropping on you.

The unnamed whistleblower told The Guardian that Siri records conversations as a form of quality control called "grading." The purpose was to allow Apple to improve Siri, but it ended up feeling like one huge privacy violation.

It turns out, Apple's voice assistant could be triggered accidentally, even by muffled background noises or zippers. Once triggered, Siri made audio recordings, some of which included personal discussions about medical information, business deals, and even people having sex. The percentage of people yelling out, "Hey Siri!" while getting it on is probably very small.


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Apple ensured that these recordings wouldn't be linked to data that could identify you, but the recordings were linked to user data that showed location, app data, and contact details. So, yeah, they could actually identify you.

To make things worse, the recordings were listened to by third-party contractors, not Apple employees. "[T]here's a high turnover. It's not like people are being encouraged to have consideration for people's privacy, or even consider it. If there were someone with nefarious intentions, it wouldn't be hard to identify [people on the recordings]," the whistleblower told The Guardian.

Apple did the right thing and apologized for the practice. "We know that customers have been concerned by recent reports of people listening to audio Siri recordings as part of our Siri quality evaluation process. We realize we haven't been fully living up to our high ideals, and for that we apologize," Apple said in a post.

Not only that, they changed their policy to address the concerns revealed in The Guardian article. Now, Apple will no longer record conversations as a default. If you want to share your conversations with Apple so they can make improvements on Siri, you have to specifically opt in. Apple will also stop using third-party contractors to listen to the recordings. Quality control will be left to Apple employees who will review computer-generated transcripts instead of recordings. Any accidental recordings will be deleted.

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Technology has made our lives easier, but it's also ushered in a whole slew of privacy concerns. It's hard not to feel like your phone is your own personal telescreen from "1984," but worse because at least telescreens didn't have addictive Snapchat filters. Why should privacy be the trade-off just because we want the convenience of being able to say, "Hey Siri, what's the difference between a dolphin and a whale?" It's nice to have the peace of mind that we can make robots do our bidding without feeling like they're spying on us – at least when it comes to our iPhones.

For over a decade, Apple's done everything in its power to keep your eyes, ears, and fingers glued to your cellphone. This makes their latest feature a little puzzling.

Tucked away in iOS 12, the mid-2018 iteration of Apple's mobile operating system, is a feature called Screen Time. This feature will monitor user activity about app usage, time spent on the device, and more. It will also allow people to set limits for themselves. Parental controls are nothing new when it comes to pieces of tech, but Screen Time is a little different in that it's not necessarily for children.

"With Screen Time, these new tools are empowering users who want help managing their device time and balancing the many things that are important to them," Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice president of software engineering, said during the product announcement. In effect, Apple is giving users the option to limit themselves and the time spent on their devices.


A look at what Apple's Screen Time feature will look like on iPhone. Image from Apple.

The need for Screen Time illustrates a growing consciousness around the issue of tech addiction.

It may sound silly, but people are becoming increasingly dependent on mobile devices. Figures vary, but it's estimated that the average U.S. adult spends somewhere around four hours on their phones and tablets each day, a number that's climbed higher in recent years. Whether it's actually an "addiction" is up for debate (it's not currently listed in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), but it and similar technology-related issues are being studied.

Whether or not tech can actually be addictive, there's a lot of data to suggest that it's just simply not great for our health in large doses.

If tech addiction doesn't exist, it's not for a lack of trying.

In a November interview with Axios, Sean Parker, an early investor in Facebook and its first president, explained the driving question behind the company's development: "How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?"

"That means that we need to sort of give you a little dopamine hit every once in a while, because someone liked or commented on a photo or a post or whatever. And that's going to get you to contribute more content, and that's going to get you ... more likes and comments. It's a social-validation feedback loop ... exactly the kind of thing that a hacker like myself would come up with, because you're exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology."

To be fair, getting people to use a product as much as possible isn't exactly a remarkable goal for any company. Facebook just succeeded in ways other businesses haven't.

Sean Parker addresses a conference in 2017. Photo by Theo Wargo/Getty Images for Global Citizen.

Some in the tech industry are finally asking questions and drawing conclusions about the long-term effects of dependency on technology.

Former Facebook vice president of user growth Chamath Palihapitiya told an audience at Stanford University that the "short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops we've created" pose a threat to society as a whole. "No civil discourse, no cooperation; misinformation, mistruth. And it's not an American problem — this is not about Russian ads. This is a global problem."

During its 2018 I/O conference, Google acknowledged that technology as we currently know it comes with some downsides. "Great technology should improve life, not distract from it," the company's Digital Wellbeing website proclaims. This new suite of tools, similar to Apple's Screen Time, comes with a simple goal: Ensure that "life, not the technology in it, stays front and center."

Without a doubt, tools like those in Google's Digital Wellbeing and Apple's Screen Time are a good thing. But they're probably not enough.

In his 2016 TED Talk on how "better tech could protect us from distraction," former Google design ethicist Tristan Harris laid out a plan to "restore choice" in the relationship we have with technology. The goal is to convince companies to pursue a metric of "time well spent" rather than simply time spent. Harris called on companies to judge their success on the company's "net positive contribution to human life," on designers to resist the urge to simply create unproductive time-sucks, and on consumers to "demand technology that works this way."

A healthier relationship with technology requires companies to rethink their businesses as a whole. Tools like Digital Wellbeing and Screen Time on their own don't address the underlying issue.

If you feel like you're having a tough time reducing your time on your mobile devices and you want to cut back, there are simple things you can do right now.

As co-founder and executive director at the Center for Humane Technology, Harris advocates for better design. The organization's website is full of great resources, but none better and more instantly applicable than its list of ways to "live more intentionally with your devices." Here are five suggestions for ways you can cut back on mobile device dependence:

1. Manage your notifications.

CHT recommends turning off all notifications for everything except messaging apps, text, and email.

2. Change your display to black, white, and gray.

Did you know that you can make your iPhone display grayscale? CHT outlines how to do that, removing some of the bright colors that demand our attention.

3. Sleep with your phone in a different room.

Not only do phones have a nasty habit of keeping us up late when we're trying to sleep, but waking up next to one reinforces a habit that starts the day diving headfirst into technology.

4. Reorganize your home screen.

Think about what apps you spend a lot of time mindlessly browsing. Now move them to the second screen. CHT suggests using the home screen for "apps you use for quick in-and-out tasks."

5. Use available tools and apps to help you.

Tools like Digital Wellbeing, Screen Time, and third-party apps are designed to reduce distraction. Did you know that there's an app you can download that temporarily locks you out of other apps? How about an extension that blocks out Facebook's newsfeed? There are loads of productivity apps that  make your phone usage a bit more deliberate without having to cut yourself off from technology entirely.

Apple CEO Tim Cook appears at Apple's 2018 Worldwide Developers Conference. Photo by Apple.

Technology can be wonderful, and social media can connect us in powerful new ways, but remember that too much of a good thing can have its downsides.

No one is saying that you shouldn't use the internet or your smartphone. Those things are simply a part of people's lives now. What you should do, if you want to, is set boundaries for yourself. If even the companies whose profits depend on getting people hooked on the use of their products are taking steps to help you dial things back, it's probably worth a shot.

Prepare yourself, because a new ad campaign from the marketing wizards at Apple may leave you a sniffling mess.

The four short spots for Apple in Australia briefly capture the weddings and first dances of real same-sex couples. The ads are all set to a Courtney Barnett cover of the INXS hit, “Never Tear Us Apart.”

Like any good first dance, there are are spins …


All GIFs via Apple Australia/YouTube.

… grins …

… confetti ...

... and kisses.

It's the perfect lovey-dovey, super sweet, "I’m not crying. You’re crying" kind of commercials we all love to watch.

So why the happy tears? Because for couples in Australia, a video like this was a long-time coming.

In November, 2017 Australians completed a national postal survey, essentially an unofficial vote, on whether they approved a change to the law to allow same sex couples to wed. 61.6% of respondents said "I do," clearing a path for an official vote in parliament in December, where marriage equality passed almost unanimously.

“We’ve voted today for equality, for love, it’s time for more marriages, more commitment, more love, more respect,” Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull told the country's House of Representatives. “This is Australia: fair, diverse, loving, and filled with respect.”

People in the crowd celebrate as the survey result is announced. Photo by Scott Barbour/Getty Images.

While marriage equality is not the first and last priority for LGBTQ people, normalizing same-sex couples and families is no small thing.

After all, the U.S. has had marriage equality since 2015 and still:

Representation and visibility alone won't solve these problems.

But seeing and celebrating our similarities and shared humanity is just what we need to gain passionate allies in the fight for equality. This isn't a battle for special rights or treatment — it's a simple request for dignity, respect, and economic empowerment.

And if we get one step closer because of films, TV, shows, books, or even a commercial shot on an iPhone, so be it.

Grab the tissue and check out the 60 second ad “First Dance.”