People check their phones all the time. They’re addicted to Facebook, their email, you know the story. But (apparently) there’s an even more vulnerable population than humans: mice.
In If You Give a Mouse an iPhone by Ann Droyd (a pseudonym, sadly), Applesauce the mouse won’t stop bothering his human friend. So the kid offers him 10 minutes of iPhone time. Applesauce is elated. But then something more sinister happens. Not really, but Applesauce does become completely enthralled by the phone and doesn’t realize that his friend is taking him on a special adventure to an amusement park.
He misses out on lots of fun stuff because he’s on his phone, accidentally sets a bunch of animals loose at the amusement park, walks out unaware, walks straight into the ocean, makes his way to a deserted island, eventually loses battery and needs to charge the iPhone, discovers he can’t because he’s on the remote island, and—well, I don’t want to completely spoil it for you. Fred Armisen’s narration in the video above is impassioned and generally awesome.
Suffice it to say that our obsession with screen time has become enough of a problem that we need to start talking to kids about it while they’r’e young. If You Give a Mouse an iPhone is more troubling than the beloved classic If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, but it’s also driving at some deeper real talk. Go play outside, kids.
