GIVING GADGETS A SAY AT HOME
Know the perks and pitfalls before deciding whether to introduce your children to a digital assistant
Hey parents: What if there was a machine that could respond to your kids’ every command, never tiring, even if they ask it to tell jokes for two hours or answer all their homework questions?
It’s a blessing and a curse for moms and dads that machines kind of like that do exist in the form of Google’s Assistant and Amazon’s Alexa.
These in-house digital assistants don’t always understand questions or serve up useful answers (which some parents say is a good thing). But they do create challenges and opportunities for parents — especially those raising younger kids. Even as Amazon and Google are adding options that control access and require kids to speak politely to their voice-controlled speakers, devices like the Echo Dot and Google Home can make a big and unexpected impact.
It took Mary Beth Foster a few days to notice, but it was undeniable: Her son’s first words weren’t “goo.” Her one-year-old was saying, “Ok, Google,” after hearing his parents say it over and over. When she realized that, Foster says, “My husband thought I was nuts. Babies say ‘goo’ all the time, right? Until he heard him mimic us talking at the Google Home in context.”
Speed bumps like this have led some parents to avoid these devices.
But for parents who have invited a digital assistant into their home, here are some of the challenges:
ANSWERS COME QUICKLY, BUT MIGHT BE WRONG
Are the kids calling out questions and accepting a single response as the entire story, without questioning where that answer comes from? Alexa’s info most often comes from Wikipedia, which kids may not know isn’t always accurate.
On the bright side, if a child is calling out a question — rather than silently typing it into a device — a parent can hear it and engage.
Also, it’s a welcome change in some households if the child isn’t looking at a screen (though some devices, including the Echo Show, include a screen that shows question prompts and video). Without screens, children have to process information aurally, which “could make you think a little bit more because you don’t have the visual,” says Erin Boyd- Soisson, professor of human development and family science at Messiah College in Mechanicsburg, Pa.
Kids can get frustrated because digital assistants don’t always hear high-pitched voices correctly, or might be confused by a child’s diction or phrasing.
Parents can use this to encourage clearer use of language and better diction. But be aware that digital assistants “may privilege some dialects over others,” says Shannon Audley, assistant professor of education and child study at Smith College in Northampton, Mass.
SHORT ANSWERS WON’T SPUR CRITICAL THINKING
If a child is asking Alexa to answer a math problem, that instant answer “takes away their own strategies for problem solving,” says Audley. One option is to use parenting controls so kids can’t access the device during their homework session.
Teach young kids that they need to be able to arrive at answers and synthesize information through their own methods and thinking, says Boyd- Soisson.
As children get older, this naturally gets easier.
YOU CAN HEAR IT ALL, AND THAT CAN BE TOO MUCH
It’s delightful to see a kid discover just how much incredible music and information is floating in the virtual cloud. But all that access can induce overload.
“This spring, we stayed with my parents for six weeks while we did house renovations,” says Jillian Kirby. Her son is not quite three years old and was delighted that his grandparents had Alexa at their house.
Soon after meeting Alexa, Kirby ’s son “became power-hungry and impatient, and wanted to change the song the moment it came on, yelling ‘Alexa! NEX’ song!’ It took several weeks back home and away from digital assistance to start getting through whole albums again.
The key to parenting in the age of Alexa and Google, according to parents and child-development experts, is making sure the machine doesn’t replace good, inquisitive interaction between parents and kids. “It’s not that the technology is good or bad,” says Audley. “It’s essentially how we use it.”