Tim Cook spoke out about cell phone addiction and urged parents to limit the amount of time their children use them

The managing director of Manzana, Tim Cook, doesn’t want to see children glued to his company’s products. One of the most significant personalities in the technology sector has clarified his vision of the effect that his products generate on a younger audience, not betting on the promotion of digital addiction.

“Children were born digital and are now digital children,” Cook said in a lengthy profile published Monday in men’s magazine GQ. “And it’s, I think, really important set some hard limits around it.”

Cook, who has no children, had previously said he didn’t want to see his nephew using social media and had even called for limiting the use of technology in schools.

“We don’t want people to overuse our phones. We are not incentivized for this. We provide tools so people don’t,” Cook said.

Instead, Apple is focused on developing devices that allow people to do, learn, or even create things they otherwise couldn’t do.

These reflections by Tim Cook are not surprising. His determination has led him to be cautious in the trade in personal data, a common characteristic performed by other companies in the sector.

Also during his tenure, a major set of privacy changes were introduced in 2021 that prevent third-party apps from accessing consumer data unless they have the user’s permission.

Cook himself seems to prioritize spending free time in nature over a permanent Internet connection. “It’s better than anything else you can do”He admitted.

Tim Cook on China’s development

On the other hand, Apple’s executive chairman suddenly traveled to China, where he highlighted the rapid progress in innovation and predicted that the industry will accelerate even further, according to local media reports.

Cook attended the China Development Forum on Saturday, where he was “excited” to return to the country, which he had not visited since the start of the covid-19 pandemic.

After participating in a panel at this event, the executive praised China’s technological achievements and predicted rapid advances in fields such as artificial intelligence and augmented reality, technologies that, he said, “bode incredibly positive things for humanity.”

“This is why Apple is committed to having schools teach students to code from the beginning,” he said.

The Apple boss explained that during this visit he met two teachers from rural areas where digital education has been implemented and it was “wonderful” to learn how classrooms have changed with the introduction of technology.

Cook refused to answer a press question about his company’s future plans in the Chinese market as part of the US strategy to decouple its economy from that of the Asian giant and on the possible readjustments that this would entail in supply chains.

This year marks three decades since Apple entered the Chinese market, a country where a large number of the company’s suppliers and its main assembly plants for the company’s flagship products such as the iPhone are located.