Is the iPhone a High School Essential?

Michael O'Connell, Staff Writer

As the cliche goes, “Everyone is different.” Take a walk around Scituate High School, and this rings true in almost every quantifiable way: Students have different hair, clothes on their back, and shoes on their feet. But ask students to empty their pockets, and an undeniable trend will show up almost immediately–the iPhone.  According to a London-based analytics firm, there are more than 24,000 different models of the smartphone on the market; however, at SHS, the vast majority of smartphone users own iPhones.

Graduating seniors were around the age of six-years-old when Steve Jobs stepped on stage and pulled a touchscreen, Internet-connected cell phone out of his pocket.  In just a few years, they would be pulling the evolution of that phone out of their pockets on an hourly basis. Though Apple reportedly spends over $2 billion annually on advertising, the company’s products—especially the iPhone—practically sell themselves. As the iPhone “fanbase” grew from the first dedicated early adopters to more conventional consumers, the iPhone increasingly became one of the most important socioeconomic indicators a person could buy.  It’s no surprise then that Apple sold their billionth iPhone nearly three years ago. This popularity has infiltrated the market for young people, arguably more than any other single item.

One SHS student said he chose to buy an iPhone, because “it’s the iPhone.” This is music to the Apple’s corporate ears. The “Je ne sais pas” of the iPhone is its greatest selling point, but also Apple’s greatest marketing challenge.  Apple produced a series of commercials with the slogan, “If it’s not an iPhone, it’s not iPhone.” In the contemporary lexicon, iPhone has replaced the smartphone, and the smartphone has replaced iPhone; they are one and the same.

The popularity of the iPhone has contributed to its sales as well: one student said, “I bought the iPhone because all of my friends have one, and if I want to be social with them, I need to use iMessage, and FaceTime, which only iPhones have.” Apple has incredible control over the social communication fabric of the world, and they won’t let you forget it. Apple works to keep their communication services strictly limited to their line of products.  They argue with some veracity that this is for security purposes, but from the position of a business titan, it is logical that Apple wants to keep a tight leash on a service that has kept their customers so loyal.

More than one student at SHS said teenagers who buy phones other than iPhones do so in order to portray some sort of “higher intellect,” so as not to follow the choices of the masses.  This type of customer certainly exists, but considering the symbolic power the iPhone has in teenage society, it is hard to imagine many people are actually doing this. It is important for people to remember that the cheapest new iPhone costs nearly $800, which is about the same price as the next most popular non-iPhone phone on the market, a cost that some may not be able to pay.

It’s not necessarily bad that so much brand loyalty among young people exists for a company like Apple. What is necessary going forward is to teach young people how to make purchasing decisions independently–and how to recognize when product popularity has made a company lazy. The iPhone is a great option for students, but hopefully, they realize that the iPhone aura doesn’t have to control their own.