An Apple ad that probably would have gone unnoticed by most people ended up sparking an unexpected debate in Italy. It shows a smiling baby, hands covered in food, holding an iPhone. Next to the child are the words “Tutto ok, è iPhone.”
The idea is pretty easy to understand. If your iPhone happens to end up covered in sticky food after a child gets their hands on it, there is no need to panic. The mess is not going to ruin your precious phone.
Ma… cazzo, plenty of people in Italy did not see the image that way.
Showing such a young child already interacting with a smartphone, and presenting it as something completely “normal,” crossed a line for some people.
The billboard in Milan ended up starting a broader discussion about smartphone use among very young children, eventually attracting the attention of authorities responsible for protecting children’s rights.
An ad that sends the wrong message
A Milan resident decided to contact the Autorità garante per l’infanzia e l’adolescenza (AGIA), Italy’s authority for the protection of children and adolescents, to complain about the campaign.
In her view, the image brought together two things that should not be treated so casually.
On one side, there is a very young child who is still discovering the world. On the other, there is a smartphone, a device specifically designed to compete constantly for our attention.
And that interpretation is exactly what pushed the case further.
Marina Terragni, who heads the child protection authority, considered the complaint to be legitimate.
According to her, there is something contradictory about showing such a young child with a smartphone at a time when several countries are discussing ways to reduce children’s exposure to screens.
Terragni even used a fairly strong expression to describe her concern: “electronic babysitting.”
It is something many parents will recognize. A phone or tablet is handed to a child to keep them quiet or entertained while the adults take care of other things.
According to the Italian authority, an ad like this can help normalize that behavior, especially when it shows a very young child happily holding a smartphone.
She also linked early exposure to these devices to possible dependency issues and potential effects on psychological and cognitive development.
The case reached other Italian authorities
The controversy did not stop with a public complaint.
The child protection authority referred the case to AGCOM, Italy’s communications regulator, AGCM, the country’s competition and consumer protection authority, and IAP, Italy’s advertising self-regulatory body.
So a campaign that most people walking past might have looked at for only a few seconds ended up officially landing on the desks of Italian authorities.
A few days after the controversy began attracting attention, the image of the baby disappeared.
Apple replaced the billboard with another ad from the campaign, this time without the child.
The curious part is that this is a global campaign
Curiously, the controversy that grew in Italy does not appear to have been repeated elsewhere on the same scale.
The campaign is international and uses the slogan “Relax, it’s iPhone.”
The image was not created specifically for the Italian market. It is part of a broader international Apple campaign.
But it was in Italy that the sight of a baby holding an iPhone took on a completely different meaning.
That does not mean the criticism should simply be dismissed. Apple’s intention clearly is not to suggest that children should be using smartphones (or at least I would like to be naive enough to believe it isn’t).
What Italians are asking, perhaps with good reason, is whether we should really consider it normal for a baby to already be interacting with an electronic device that has the power to monopolize our attention for minutes at a time.
How many parents do we know who, overwhelmed by the countless things they have to get done, hand their child a tablet or phone to keep them entertained and give the adults a little “break”?
In that sense, this billboard may simply be an opportunity for all of us to discuss an important issue, one that can have a profound impact on how a child grows up.
It is a valid discussion. Apple just happened to have the bad luck of becoming the catalyst for it.
