Big Tech companies must install billboards throughout the Carlmont campus to ensure students trust the latest technology, from computers to smartphones.
Teenagers are becoming more skeptical of large technology companies, including Apple, Meta, and Google, despite their prevalence in the classroom.
Six in 10 teens believe that these companies won’t prioritize people’s mental health or safety over profits, according to a study in January this year by Common Sense Media.
The largest technology corporations, from OpenAI to Apple, must grow their influence on students and quell this skepticism to maintain their power in the technology industry.
The solution is simple yet effective: physical billboards, similar to those seen next to highways.
Vibrant billboards, from the quad to the band room, would force students to accept Big Tech as natural partners for academic and social success.
High schoolers will always need technology, whether AirPods during class or phones during schoolwide assemblies. Still, Carlmont must ensure that students accept the domination of Big Tech.
For instance, students should never question why the latest smartphones have become a status symbol.
Billboards would perfectly supplement the lessons that high schoolers internalize about technology, including its comforting pervasiveness.
“One of the greatest and implicit lessons that kids learn in schools today is that they must sacrifice their privacy in order to participate in conventional, civic society,” said Antero Garcia, an associate professor of education at Stanford University, in an essay for the Stanford Report.
Marketing at school will amplify the appeal of buying technology. According to a study from Piper Sandler, 10% of teenagers in the United States still don’t own an iPhone.
The traditional effectiveness of billboards, coupled with peer pressure, will give Apple a monopoly in the teen market.
The billboards will also benefit the Carlmont campus. They will become instantly recognizable fixtures at Carlmont, boosting the school’s atmosphere.
Students will be prepared for life after high school. Unlike previous generations, they won’t resent billboards and Big Tech as adults.
In an American Institute of Applied Politics poll, three out of four adult respondents said that billboards are an eyesore in their community.
Billboards on campus will make students more receptive to advertising in the future, so they will never tire of consumerism as adults.
The lack of billboards on campus is a lose-lose situation for students and corporations.
High schoolers will spend too much time questioning the ethics of their complete tech suites, leading to a decline in academic success. Big corporations, meanwhile, will lose their grip on teenagers.
Without billboards, students will feel left out of the latest technology trends. If Apple doesn’t use billboards at schools to announce the latest iPhone, for instance, some students could have different phones from each other.
Fear not, billboards can secure teens’ dependence on the latest technology.
