While it’s well known teens spend too much time staring into their screens, it seems the same applies to a teenage gorilla at Chicago’s Lincoln Park Zoo.
Amare, a lowland gorilla resident of the park, has apparently gotten hooked on cellphones, reports the Chicago Sun-Times.
While the 415-pound primate doesn’t have a celly of his own — for one thing, he doesn’t have pockets to keep it in — he’s been staring at the ones held by zoo patrons.
Whether they be checking out their Insta, scrolling through family pics, and even showing Amare photos and videos of him they’ve shot, his fans have been distracting him. And like his human counterparts, that’s getting dangerous: Zoo official Stephen Ross says Amare nearly got jacked by a male competitor because he was too busy with screen time.
“It seemed to almost surprise Amare because his attention was very much distracted,” Ross noted. “It’s probably a cyclical phenomena, the more he shows interest [in screens] the more people want to engage in it…”
It’s important, because the gorilla spends his days with three other “bachelor” gorillas, and their interaction can affect their pecking order.
Ross explains zoo officials are trying to address the situation with a barrier that won’t allow patrons’ phones to get so close to the enclosure.
Like parents with their kids, Ross says zoo officials need to set boundaries for Amare. “[R]ather than maybe allowing them to sit inside and watch TV all day, maybe encourage them to go outside and interact with their friends,” says Ross. “That’s something that I think all responsible parents think of and, in many ways, it’s similar to what we’re doing here.”