A Touching but Troubling Ad

For a few years now, Apple releases an ad during the Thanksgiving week. Every time, Apple moves our emotions and shows they can touch our soul with simple and short movies. This year is no exception. Have a look for yourself.

As touching this ad can be, I find it to be troublesome. On many occasions, parents will give the kids an iPad in order to… calm them down. These little girls certainly seem to move some air around them. Apple wants us to believe these moments become an opportunity for creative expression. Maybe. But this parenting behaviour is far too common in our society. Sure this same thing happened before the iPad. Parents would put us in front of a TV show or a movie so we can give them some relief. Yet, with the iPad, it is even more common because of the device portability. I see this as setting our kids aside from our society, our reality. They no longer learn from their parents, they learn from the Internet.

I’m the father of two boys. When they were small kids, I didn’t have an iPad or even a smartphone to give them so they could play with it. I don’t know how I would behave these days with my kids jumping around in the house while screaming. Maybe I would lend them an iPad so they could have a chance to create a small movie. Just maybe.