Voice assistants like Siri and Alexa may be hurting children’s development, say researchers

The use of voice assistants like Siri or even voice-activated smart devices such as Google Home and Amazon Alexa have skyrocketed in the last couple of years as the futuristic idea of controlling your entire home with just your voice takes off. However, researchers are now suggesting that these voice assistants might have some serious long-term impact on the social and cognitive development of children.

One of the biggest concerns here is that children may end up viewing these devices to have human characteristics and behaviours, when in actuality they’re nothing more than electronic gadgets. In particular, because these voice assistants require a ‘social cue’ first—Hey Google, Hey Siri—children might over-humanise them. Furthermore, a lot of the social cues and behaviours expected in actual human-to-human conversations are not replicated when talking to a voice assistant. There’s no expectation to be polite to Siri for example, nor do children learn about the importance of considering the tone of voice and whether their command is considered rude of obnoxious.

“The lack of ability to engage in non-verbal communication makes use of the devices a poor method of learning social interaction. While in normal human interactions, a child would usually receive constructive feedback if they were to behave inappropriately, this is beyond the scope of a smart device,” – Anmol Arora, School of Clinical Medicine, University of Cambridge

Arora though does commend Amazon for their implementation of a ‘Magic Word’ feature on the Alexa device. The Magic Word function basically makes Alexa acknowledge whenever a request is made in a polite way by responding to the user ‘Thanks for asking so nicely’. There’s also a lot of additional kid-friendly functions on Alexa though are all unfortunately locked behind Amazon Kids+ that costs USD4.99 per month.

Nevertheless, these smart devices may also hinder learning opportunities in children. Because these voice assistants make it so easy to get answers to questions we pose to them, it may hurt the ‘traditional processes by which children learn and absorb information’. In contrast, when a child asks a question to an adult, there’s normally a conversation happening where the adult can not only ask for more context to provide an answer, but also explain their own knowledge limitations and examine the child’s reasoning when giving them an answer. This all forms an important learning experience to the child which teaches them critical thinking and logical reasoning.

Lastly, there’s also been some concern about possible inappropriate responses coming from these voice assistants. For instance, late last year it was widely reported that Alexa had challenged a ten-year-old into touching a live plug while holding a coin. This came after the child asked Alexa for a ‘challenge’. There’s also been privacy concerns over the use of voice assistants in general.

Overall, while there’s no doubt that using one of these voice assistants of a smart home device could be of great help to your day-to-day life, if you have a child in your home you should keep an eye on them when they use a voice assistant. Arora also calls for more research to be done into the long term consequences of children talking to such devices.

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