TORONTO, ON –
Daniel Smith is a 3rd year Engineering student at the University of Toronto. He spent his whole life trying to raise his parents into today’s technological world with the right mentality.
He explained how Android phones are faster and easy to customize; how Apple laptops are incredibly overpriced and nearly impossible to modify; and how iTunes is horrible and makes you install Quicktime.
So imagine Daniel’s surprise when just last summer, hand in hand in their living room, Daniel’s parents Linda and John announced that they had bought 2 iPhones and were thinking about getting an iPad.
“I should have seen the signs,” Daniel told the Toike in a touching interview in late August. “The iTunes icon I noticed when I was fixing their computer over Christmas break, the Steve Jobs biography on my mom’s Kindle, and I even overheard them talking about a ‘revolutionary world changing thing’ before they switched topics when I walked into the room.”
“I guess I always knew, but didn’t want to admit it to myself. I felt like a failure.”
Daniel is just one of many students this year that came home this summer to find their parents coming out to them. “I was always tolerant with the idea of parents using Apple devices,” another anonymous student admitted, “Except I just didn’t want it to be my parents, you know? I wanted my parents to settle down with a nice little Samsung, or even a Blackberry.”
The trend continues to grow as more and more children move out to university leaving their parents free to experiment. “They say they’re just iCurious, just trying things out to see what they like,” reports resident psychologist Aimee Wilkerson, “but more often than not, once they buy even a single Apple product, there’s no turning back; they’re a part of the Apple community.”
“I think it’s wrong that these people are allowed to have kids,” claims ECE student Danash Karthigesu, “Once they’ve outed themselves as Apple users they should have any child under their care taken away and given to a proper Google-loving family. It’s a sin, and we can’t allow this sin to rub off on innocent children. Adam and Eve made the mistake of choosing Apple, we can’t let out parents do the same.”
Certain students are even going so far as sending their parents to Pray-The-Apple-Away camp, where parents are instructed on how over-priced Apple products are and how the iPhone has been falling behind in the smartphone industry for 3 years now. Students agree that these measures are “extreme but necessary,” but many studies are beginning to show that these camps do very little besides shame parents for what may be an entirely genetic disposition.
“People say that it’s just a lifestyle choice, that it’s harmless,” preaches advocate Daniel Kim, “but what they forget is that Apple-laden parents are teachers too. Are they going to start putting iPhones into the hands of our younger siblings and iPads into the schools? One can only imagine the impact they’re having on these kids at such a vulnerable age.”
Radical opponents of the Apple-trend have been quick to point out that while Apple-using may seem relatively harmless now, it may act as a gateway to even more disgusting and deviant behavior such as using Windows phones. “Even I don’t think parents would degrade themselves that far,” replies Aimee, “but if they ever did, it would certainly be the end of civilization as we know it.”
