Cell Phones: the Problem, Not the Solution

By Brian Khaneyan

Cell phones have become an object that every person is required to have. In late 2014, the amount of cell phones in existence surpassed the number of people in the world. It’s no secret that the general population who buy consumer electronics upgrade them frequently, but cellphones have an incredibly short life cycle comparatively. Americans replace their cellphone every 22 months. However the consequences of such an action are rarely considered. Julia Corbett states in chapter three of Communicating Nature that there are four main factors that influence behavior: attitudinal factors, personal factors, contextual factors, and habit and routine. Some environmental issues such as GMO’s or animal rights or fracking can cause behavioral change because they usually do not change habit and routine and are in line with a person’s attitudinal factors – “we should have clean drinking water and animals should not suffer.” However, the same cannot be said for buying a cell phone. The device is integral to our being, which is why it is incredibly difficult to change. 

The first step in understanding why cell phone waste and consumption is incredibly dangerous is understanding that cell phone manufacturers do not create, they design. Apple is an easy example to take since they are the largest cell phone company in the world, and the demand for their phones creates even more issues which will be discussed. A phone is made from an incredible number of parts. There is the glass for the screen, the digitizer underneath it, the aluminum case, the gold for contact points, the chip boards, the solder to connect the components that are made of even more various resources, and a slew of chemicals needed to ensure the bonding and proper function of all of these parts. Apple does not create any of these parts, they do not resource the tin needed for the solder, they don’t mine the silicon needed for the chips. They get these resources from other companies which can sell to multiple phone manufacturers. However Apple is their main source of income, and Apple will sign contracts with these companies to ensure that they can get enough materials needed for their upcoming phone launch. The same is done for the production of the phone. The assembly, specifically for Apple, takes place in the FoxConn factory. It is in the best interest of these companies to gather as much material possible no matter what it takes, and this many times involves violating worker’s rights and safety practices. 

The first source is a controversial documentary from the BBC that aired on TV, Panorama: Apple’s Broken Promises. The documentary takes a look at the entire spectrum of issues by inserting an undercover employee who broke through apple’s rigorous security checks in order to document what was really going on. Among the highlights were employees commonly passing out due to lack of sleep, constant threats from line managers including slave-like chanting as part of employee’s duties, and the confiscation of identification once they entered the factory. This piece and its contents were incredibly shocking. These workers had to work in incredibly dangerous and unjust circumstances in order to support themselves. Apple responded saying that they were “deeply offended” by the piece, stating that they are working to improve the working conditions. The result of this is that finding the piece online is incredibly difficult. There is currently no legal way to watch this if you are in the US, and all YouTube links have been taken down. The major US online news networks like The Huffington Post have not covered the piece either, while their United Kingdom equivalents like The Guardian, The Telegraph, and The Independent have.  It is typical for a company to do this kind of censorship throughThe major news networks including NBC, ABC, and CBS have not reported on these findings. However, Apple invited ABC News into their factory, and their findings were much more tame than the BBC’s. This occurred two years after the FoxConn Suicides, which were greatly highlighted in the media. 

As shown through the previous source, companies can greatly influence media and internet through their influence. However they can also have a great amount of influence through direct advertising. This print ad employs some of the tactics spoken about in chapter six of Communicating Nature. The ad states “There are some ideas we want every company to copy.” This is set on top of a field filled with solar panels. This serves a couple of purposes. It uses propaganda devices to insinuate that they are a cleaner company and a more innovative company than anyone else. They use name calling to label their competitor’s product as not-green. The ad evokes a certain feeling of beauty. There’s a sun setting over a green field and among this are perfectly lined up solar panels. The advertisement does an incredibly good job of making the reader feel like Apple is actually doing something to help the environment while suggesting that other companies do not. More of this can be seen at Apple’s own environmental page. Once again the clean design, statistics, and even sheer amount of information on the page. The page is truly inundated with statistics. “30%: amount of recycled post-consumer recycled plastic in Mac Pro speakers.” This is the part they are talking about. As shown, the part is incredibly small and clearly does not represent a relevant amount of the raw material needed to make this product. Stating numbers like 30% saved advertising hyperbole that Julia Corbett once again speaks of in chapter six.

The effect of this aggressive advertising campaign is that people listen, and it gets their point across. However, the companies do not control what is done after you buy the smartphone. Jessica Dolcourt’s article “Your Smartphone’s Secret Afterlife” on CNet goes in detail about the issues with smartphone waste. The main theme in this article is that is that the dangerous chemicals used in the making of cell phones could come back and affect your drinking water and harm you. Titles like “cell phones could kill you” are used throughout the article. This not only makes it clear that cell phone waste is hazardous, but it gives the reader an incentive to actually do something about it. Appropriately enough, after an entire section on the immense dangers of the chemicals used in cell phone manufacturing, the author presents the facts on recycling, and shows the reader how recycling can prevent the dangerous situations explained in the previous paragraphs. The article is also incredibly informative, using statistics throughout to bolster its main points. The article also doesn’t fully fixate itself on Apple and recognizes that all companies need to be friendly to the environment. 

Social media is incredibly important in influencing someone’s thought process and decisions. One of the newest and most popular platforms is Reddit.com. This is a web-forum and news aggregator that sorts stories based on voting. A user can down-vote a story if it is not interesting to them, and up-vote it if it is. FairPhone is a startup company which was started to create a 100% ethical phone in all fields: mining, design, manufacturing, life cycle, and social entrepreneurship. The company has created their first phone and is now working on others. Similarly, the OnePlus One phone was created by a startup company and is aimed at bringing the lowest priced phone with the best features around. These two phones are easy to compare due to their startup nature and community funded origins. The top post on Reddit for the OnePlus One has 2,811 up-votes, and the top post for the FairPhone has 2,456 upvotes. However the FairPhone has 1000 less comments than the OnePlus. This shows that people are generally less interested in a phone that aims to be good for the environment, they want something that will benefit them the most, another idea brought up in Communicating Nature. Some of the comments for the FairPhone were “A good idea, but it’s a bit too soon to attempt.” “Great Concept, but no 4g is a dealbreaker.”Anothercommenter stated:

What I want to see is all the morons demanding ethically manufactured devices to put up and buy the things over the much better and with better value devices from HTC or Samsung that were allegedly manufactured on the blood, sweat, and tears of children.

The only reason these devices are made ethically is because there's a market for it, there's a bunch of idiots wanting to buy it to make themselves feel better for using it.

This is not the way most of the community thinks, as shown by its score of -6 points. The score shows us that people don’t think that they are morons for wanting to buy such a phone and they truly want to make a difference if given the chance. 

Print newspapers are also an incredibly important source of news. While the demographics for print media don’t particularly line up with those of smartphones, it is still important to see how this issue is portrayed in print. David Barboza of The New York Times wrote a piece, “Another Death at Electronics Supplier in China.” Like most print articles tend to be, the article is very informative and unbiased. The only bias present in pieces like these is based on what the reporter chooses to include. For this piece, the reporter brings up facts about the suicide rates at Foxconn. He also chooses to include quotes from workers rather than statements made from the company itself. Many articles, like the ABC segment shown earlier, won’t include worker statements. The second to last paragraph details why Sun Danyong committed suicide, reporting that he was beaten and humiliated by personnel for misplacing an iPhone prototype. This is clearly a sorrowful event, but the last paragraph and quote serves to tie the piece all together, “we are extremely tired, with tremendous pressure.” The inclusion of these last two paragraphs evokes empathy and forces the reader to think about the atrocities being committed at factories like Foxconn. 

The last source being reviewed is from a YouTube channel called SourceFed. The channel is aimed at short news content portrayed in an interesting way. The video “iPhone Factory Riot” explains the Foxconn riots. They use jump-cuts to keep the viewer interested throughout the piece while including images over their background commentary. Pictures of the riot event are also used in the video. The company is portrayed in a negative light, with a host stating that: “The whole place is a little weird… The employees are rising up against guards mutiny style- something smells fishy at Foxconn.” At the end of the video, they ask the viewers if they’d stop buying Apple products due to how they treat their workers. Thejerrymobile responded: 

It is however to note that companies of this ponderous scale usually have a finger in every possible (am I really using this metaphor) pie. They make small and medium scale components that are sold to other manufacturers, which eventually end up in every electronic thing you could possibly buy. Thus a better strategy (if you are concerned with doing something) is to use those devices to influence positive change

It turns out that he is completely right. All the articles reviewed are incredibly informative and focus on the injustices that companies like Foxconn commit. However none of them offer a solution. The FairPhone is somewhat of a solution, but in the end there are simply not going to be enough people who buy a more expensive and lesser advertised phone. The only way to truly inspire change in an industry like this is not to vote with your wallet, but to yell with your mouth – or keyboard. The riots and suicides in FoxConn have caused petitions to pop up that have garnered many signatures at Change.org and SumOfUs.org. These petitions can incite change. If enough people speak, then the companies will listen. This SumOfUs.org page on creating an ethical iPhone sums it up quite neatly: “Can Apple do this? Absolutely.They’re sitting on $100 billion in cash.Suppliers would change everything tomorrow if Apple told them they didn’t have another choice.” This is why we need to make our voice heard. If there are enough complaints as to the non-ethical nature of their products, companies will listen and will make change happen.