Goo-gle gaga: Parenting in the age of Alexa and her ilk
Hey parents: What if there was a machine that could respond to your children’ 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 children. Even as Amazon and Google are adding options that control access and require children 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 goo.” Her 1-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.”
Meanwhile Foster, who lives in Mint Hill, N.C., says the device has created some confusion for her 4-year-old daughter over who, exactly, is in charge. Because the family accesses Netflix, Amazon Prime content and YouTube TV through their Google Home, their daughter has begun asking questions like, “Mom, can you ask Google if we can watch ‘Beauty and the Beast’?”
Speed bumps like this have led some parents to avoid these devices.
Suzanne Brown, mother of two boys ages 7 and 4, is keeping Alexa’s seemingly easy answers out of her Austin, Texas, home while her boys are young. She’d prefer to visit the library or search the internet together with her children to build their “curiosity and problem-solving muscles.”
But for parents who have invited a digital assistant into their home, here are some of the challenges:
ANSWERS CAN COME QUICKLY, BUT MIGHT BE WRONG OR INCOMPLETE
Are the children 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 children 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, Penn.a.
SHORT ANSWERS WON’T ENCOURAGE CRITICAL THINKING, BUT PARENTS CAN
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 children can’t access the device during their homework session.
Teach young children that they need to be able to arrive at answers and synthesize information through their own methods and thinking, says Boyd-Soisson.
YOU CAN HEAR IT ALL,
AND SOMETIMES THAT’S
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, who lives in Burlington, Vt. Her son is not quite 3 and was delighted that his grandparents had Alexa at their house.
Soon after meeting Alexa, Kirby’s “music-loving son became power-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.
“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.”
—Mary Beth Foster