You don’t care, because you’re an adult, what you or I see as a simple visual indicator is yet another thing that HS teens will use to bully and peer pressure with.
But you should care in the sense that Apple is exploiting teens still developing brains and maturity with dark patterns to get them “hooked for life” in a way.
I don’t know why you’re getting downvoted. The problem isn’t the fact that the indicator exists. A lot of it is because it’s an ugly green bubble, and Apple refuses to change it because bullying kids is great marketing for Apple.
I doubt the bullying would be any different if it was a beautiful red (or whatever is considered a pretty chat bubble) instead.
And even if it was a blue bubble, the bullies would find another reason to bully someone.
I get the peer pressure part and sure Apple might be exploiting that in America, but in the past it was clothing brands or whatever it is now. Making the bubbles the same color (or even bringing iMessage over to Android completely) would get rid of a single symptom, not of the root cause.
Clothing gets you negative comments. iMessage gets people to exclude you from group chats or even text messaging completely. It’s become far more socially acceptable to isolate someone because of what they don’t own.
Even if this were the same level of bullying, the amount of resources that Apple needs to fix this is negligible compared to clothing companies or whathaveyou. You can’t update a shirt. You can easily update the color of a bubble or implement an industry standard. Apple refuses to even try to fix this issue, and in my eyes, they’re 100% complicit in enabling bullying.
