JULIA MONTAG| COLUMN

I

t’s Monday night and your
paper’s
due
sometime
tomorrow.
You
spent
your
weekend
unwinding
–
socializing,
catching
up
on
“Game of Thrones,” following
your
favorite
NBA
team
–
because let’s face it, you deserve
some down time! So you sit down
Monday, ready to begin this
paper, and instead, you launch
Instagram, just to get a brief
idea of what you’ll be missing in
your social circle tonight. Two
hours later with zero progress
made, you regret wasting your
time.
This
June,
Apple,
Inc.
released new, groundbreaking
software that aims to prevent
this
uniquely
millennial
circumstance from occurring.
Apple’s
annual
Worldwide
Developers Conference took
place June 4, highlighting
its platforms’ most recent
iOS 12 software updates and
forward-thinking initiatives.
Users
are
getting
excited
about new ideas that will
make iPhone harder to put
down:
group
FaceTime,
customizable
animated
emojis, an update to Siri’s
intelligence and a 40-percent
increase in overall speed.
However, among the most
radical
of
Apple’s
2018
announcements
are
those
focusing
on
curbing
our
technolog y addiction.
Apple
CEO
Tim
Cook
admitted
to
CNNMoney’s
Laurie
Segall
just
how
accidental
the
apparent
iPhone addiction is.
“You know, we want people
to be incredibly satisfied and
empowered by the devices
that we ship, but we never
wanted people to spend a lot
of time or all of their time on
them,” Cook explained. “And
we’re rolling out great tools
to both make people aware
of how much time they’re
spending (on phones) and the
apps that they’re spending it
in, but also how many times
they pick up their phone,
how many notifications they
get, who is sending them
the
notifications.
(We’re)
empowering people with the
facts to decide themselves
how they want to cut back or
if they want to cut back.”
Companies like Apple and

Google
may
be
ironically
seeking technolog y-limiting
technolog y
because
of
the
recommendations
of
investors or because of the
scientific
findings
that
inform us just how greatly
our health can suffer from
staring at phones. Physically,
screen time is detrimental to
our eyes and neck, causing
users to experience symptoms
such as dry eyes, headaches,
blurred vision and long-term
shoulder and back pain. Sleep
is often disrupted, especially
when we fail to resist putting
our phones away when getting
ready for bed. The blue light
emitted
by
iPhones
can
interrupt our bodies’ sleep
cycles by interrupting the
natural production of sleep-
inducing melatonin. Socially,
immersion in social media
can warp our sense of how
person-to-person
interactions
are supposed to take place.
Emotionally, increased phone
exposure can make us more
stressed, worried and prone to
depressive symptoms.
The new iOS 12 features
were designed to counter these
health
detriments,
yet
are
falsely idyllic. They will pose
questions about how much time
spent on our phones is too much
time,
or
whether awareness
will be enough to curb our
enthusiasm
toward
tech.
So
how will we as college students
react to the accessibility of
addiction curbing tools – to
the accessibility of phone-use
knowledge?
What
are
these
“digital
health”
tools
that
will
balance out the entertaining
advancements of iOS 12 –
the advancements that will
further hook in users? One
key
digital
health
feature
is the ability to pre-set “Do
Not
Disturb”
time,
which
will allow us to sleep or work
peacefully without receiving
texts and email notifications.
We will also have access to
a weekly summary of our
“Screen
Time,”
showing
us exactly how much time
we
spend
on
our
phone
throughout the week, how
many
hours
(and
which
specific
hours)
we
spend
mindlessly scrolling through
each app. Finally, if these

“Screen
Time”
summaries
rattle your tech-conscience
and make you want to use
apps less, “App Limits” will
allow you to set an exact time
limit per day and only permit
you to use the app until you’ve
reached it. Additionally, you
can’t work around the limit
by using your iPad instead for
the limits and summaries can
be synced across devices.
What troubles me about
these new iPhone features is
the users’ capability to turn
on or shut off the technolog y
limits.
Cook
thinks
“ultimately, each person has
to make the decision, when
they get their numbers, as
to what they would like to
do.
I
encourage
everyone
to look and everyone to make
an informed decision, and ask
themselves, if they’re picking
up their phone 10 to 20 times
an hour, maybe they could do
it less … But I think the power
is now shifted to the user. And
that has been what Apple has
always been about, is giving
the power from the institution
to the user.” So now the user
has the power to limit how
much
time
they
spend
on
Instagram or Facebook; the
issue, however, is that the App
Limit is not only voluntary, but
the user also has the power to
extend it.
Will college students pass
or fail? These new software
features seem to say to us as
tech-users that our iPhone
addiction isn’t our fault, but
is instead due to the simple
architecture of the updates
from the previous operating
systems.
Will
we
harness
the new-and-improved “Siri
Shortcuts” that monitor our
habits and suggest we mobile-
order a coffee based on the
predicted traffic? Or, will we
utilize the “Do Not Disturb”
features, the “Screen Time”
summaries, the “App Limits”
that comprise the up and
coming
Digital
Health
Initiative? We will find out
later
this
summer
when
the iOS 12 update becomes
available to the public.

5
OPINION

Thursday, June 14, 2018
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Alas, Washington floundered,
and California was left to remedy
its now-prolonged dilemma by
facing reality. Undocumented
immigrants
began
to
be
integrated into normal policy
concerns, reflecting a national
reluctance
to
truly
take
action.
S.B.
54’s
protection
of nonviolent undocumented
immigrants from federal agents,
on the grounds that local law
enforcement is more effective
when less of the populace is
afraid to cooperate, is justified
when Washington’s inaction is
taken into account.
Calling
back
on
recent
legislative failures may help
explain the current legal
dilemma, but the only concern
for many is that sanctuary
protection
invalidates
the
rule of law. No matter the
convenience afforded to law
enforcement due to sanctuary
policies, nor the injustice
imposed on undocumented
immigrants by the severe
backlog
of
American
immigration procedures, the
argument goes, welcoming
undocumented
immigrants
as they are sends the message
that
U.S.
immigration
laws
are
pliable.
While
Trump’s
misleading
and
race-baiting statements on
immigration,
along
with
a
shift
toward
nativist
policies and preferences for
immigrants
with
specific
traits and backgrounds, are
inexcusable,
these
critics
are right that circumventing
Congress is not sustainable
nor desirable.
However,
upon
closer
inspection, calls for a return
to the rule of law also reveal
that the true problem lies in
failure to act at a national
level. California’s S.B. 54
stridently disregards federal
law only in the sense that it

actively prevents state and
local law enforcement from
sharing
information
with
federal immigration officers, a
provision directly at odds with
federal immigration law, as
outlined in 8 U.S. Code section
1373. Other components of the
law, namely the requirement
that
state
and
local
officials
release
nonviolent
undocumented
immigrants
in the face of orders from
federal immigration officials,
frustrate federal objectives
yet exercise the perfectly legal
practice of noncooperation.
California’s pushback on
federal policy, much like the
aforementioned Arizona law,
is only possible because much
of the immigration issue has
not
been
comprehensively
addressed
by
Congress.
Recent failures by Congress
to come to consensus were
met
by
President
Barack
Obama’s executive “stopgap”
measure, Deferred Action for
Childhood
Arrivals,
which
has since been followed only
by extensive indecision and
refusal to move forward on
the part of Trump.
This stagnation decisively
illustrates the need for new
national legislation and policy
that faces up to the struggles
burdening the states. It also
shows how bickering over
the supremacy of federal
law or the ability of states to
avoid compliance amounts
to wasted time and energy.

Rather,
comprehensive
immigration
reform
by
Congress is the only real
solution when it comes to
resolving the concerns of
states like California and
places like Orange County.

How will college students respond to the Digital Health Initiative?

Julia Montag can be reached at

jtmon@umich.edu

Ethan Kessler can be reached at

ethankes@umich.edu.

CONTRIBUTE TO THE CONVERSATION

Readers are encouraged to submit letters
to the editor and op-eds. Letters should
be fewer than 300 words while op-eds
should be 550 to 850 words. Send the
writer’s full name and University affiliation to
emmacha@umich.edu

A state divided by Ethan Kessler continued below: