Apple is always a trending topic in the realm of tech, and being a leader in an ever evolving industry is bringing a new question about in the prelude of 2018. iPhone addiction is exponentially starting to plague Apple Incorporated and probes the issue of technology addiction in our youth.

For the past three years Apple’s global sales of iPhones (any type) has maintained a $200+ million mark and according to investors.com is only projected to grow in the new year. Currently an estimated 700 million iPhones are in use worldwide and according to statistics at least a third of those units belong to the population under 24 years old. When teenagers were polled about iPhone usage and addiction 50 percent of the sampled population report being “addicted to their iPhone” with a reported usage reaching 9 hours a day.

This has raised concerns in communities, especially in parents asking for Apple to do something about this issue. Apple’s iPhone addiction problem has been compared to cocaine addiction regarding the similar psychological dependence characteristics. Investors in the company have caught on to this notion and in the face of the public have started to nudge Apple to create new forms of device, media, and parental control for young iPhone users that would, to some extent, help decrease iPhone addiction.

Apple already has features for parental control in place, and there are plenty of applications on the market of various forms of control but consumers are pushing for a more accessible and versatile form of control built into iOS. Now all we can do is wait to see what Apple will roll out in future versions of iOS, and in the meantime consumers alike can find many ways to reduce risk of iPhone addiction from black and white screen settings to parental control.