You don’t need the new iPhone 16. Or any new smartphone, for that matter.
Apple’s announcement of the new iPhone 16, which was released on Sept. 20, has sent my Twitter/X circles into a frenzy. Did I mention it comes in five different colors?
Among the myriad of reasons you don’t need this phone, just read the brand’s announcement. Apple is introducing Apple Intelligence, a feature that “combines the power of generative models with personal context to deliver intelligence that is incredibly useful and relevant” to iPhone 16s. All that is to say that your phone is listening to you even more now.
If that isn’t enough, doesn’t Apple know that underconsumption-core is in right now? Constantly releasing new technology that has to be replaced is one of the most unsustainable practices out there, and that’s all because of how phones are made.
Smartphones are powered by precious metals like cobalt, copper, nickel and gold, which must be mined. Most of this mining occurs in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which has more cobalt reserves than the rest of the world combined, according to Statista.
One of many issues in Congo’s cobalt mines is child labor. Militia groups around the country abduct and traffic children to work in the mines and fund themselves by the mere dollar the children get per day, according to researcher Siddarth Kara.
Kara called the mines “modern-day slavery.” So-called “artisanal” miners do extremely dangerous work for a few dollars a day. Workers are subject to extreme and unsafe working conditions such as touching and breathing in toxic cobalt dust. He said that mines also often collapse and people often lose limbs or are buried alive, all because 10,000 to 15,000 tunnels there are dug by hand.
As for the environment, the mining industry has ravaged the DRC. Air around mines is poor quality, millions of trees are cut down and water is contaminated.
This is in part due to government corruption. Then-president of the DRC Joseph Kabila signed a deal with China in 2009 in exchange for the development of hospitals and schools. Now, the mines have taken over and China owns 70% of them.
Any leader in power to oppose the industry should expect a cruel fate. DRC president in 1960 Patrice Lumumba pledged to give the country’s rich mines back to the Congolese people. One year later, Lumumba was brutally tortured, assassinated and his body dissolved into acid by a Congolese separatist group and Belgian contractors for his progressive goals for the country, according to Kara.
Samsung, for its part, committed to prohibiting the use of tantalum, tin, tungsten and gold in the country in 2021 but did not commit to stopping the mining of cobalt in the DRC.
Apple announced in a May 2024 press release that it had “no reason to believe that its supply chain financed armed groups in the DRC or neighboring countries.”
Therefore, it is on us as consumers to educate ourselves about issues the phones in our back pockets have caused. It’s also more important than ever to use your products until you can’t anymore and to not over-consume.
Finally, it’s up to us to use our voice for the people working in these mines who don’t have one — we must be better.
Anya Capistrant-Kinney can be reached at capi2087@stthomas.edu.