The Internet of Toys: Practices, Affordances and the Political Economy of Children’s Smart Play

375 Pages·2019·4.12 MB·English

by  Giovanna Mascheroni

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Studies in Childhood and Youth
Series Editors
Afua Twum-Danso Imoh
University of Sheffield
Sheffield, UK
Nigel Thomas
University of Central Lancashire
Preston, UK
Spyros Spyrou
European University Cyprus
Nicosia, Cyprus
Penny Curtis
University of Sheffield
Sheffield, UK
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material phenomena. With the rapid expansion of childhood and youth
studies in recent decades, the series encourages diverse and emerging
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which explore the diversities and complexities of children’s and young
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Giovanna Mascheroni · Donell Holloway
Editors
The Internet of Toys
Practices, Affordances
and the Political Economy
of Children’s Smart Play
Editors
Giovanna Mascheroni Donell Holloway
Department of Communication School of Arts and Humanities
Catholic University of the Sacred Heart Edith Cowan University
Milan, Italy Mount Lawley, WA, Australia
Studies in Childhood and Youth
ISBN 978-3-030-10897-7 ISBN 978-3-030-10898-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10898-4
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018965777
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Preface and Acknowledgements
This book brings together diverse contributions on Internet connected
toys from leading scholars in the field of children and media studies.
The Internet of Toys is only the latest technological innovation aimed
at children and an emerging application of the Internet of Things. It
embodies a number of technological and sociocultural developments—
the robotification of childhood, datafication and dataveillance, and the
emergence of connected and hybrid play practices—that render it an
excellent point of departure for those interested in understanding, more
broadly, how children’s lives, and their futures, are transforming. We are
deeply grateful to the authors of the following chapters for providing
innovative and thought-provoking research that helps the readers situate
the Internet of Toys against the background of such broader sociocul-
tural and media changes. Without their enthusiasm and commitment,
this book would have not been possible.
Our interest in how digital media are embedded in children’s every-
day lives originated as members of the EU Kids Online network. In
over ten years of EU Kids Online research, we became fully commit-
ted to going beyond media panics and researching media from the
viewpoint of children and their families. While the Internet and digital
v
vi Preface and Acknowledgements
media are undoubtedly an integral and pervasive component of chil-
dren’s everyday lives, we believe in the need for research that accounts
for the varied ways in which children and their families face the chal-
lenges that digital media pose, and adapt and reinvent technologies
so as to fit their everyday lives. A meaningful experience for the both
of us was the comparative qualitative research into young (0–8) chil-
dren’s use of technology at home coordinated by the Joint Research
Centre. More recently, the inspiration to direct our attention towards
the Internet of Toys and Things for young children came from our par-
ticipation in the COST Action IS1410, the digital literacy and multi-
modal practices of young children (DigiLitEY)—which also supported
this publication. Therefore, we are deeply grateful to our EU Kids
Online and DigiLitEY colleagues for helpful discussions and inspiration
along the way, and especially to Stéphane Chaudron, Ola Erstad, Rosie
Flewitt, Lelia Green, Leslie Haddon, Uwe Hasebrink, Claudia Lampert,
Sonia Livingstone, Jackie Marsh, Tijana Milosevic, Kjartan Olafsson,
Ingrid Paus-Hasebrink, Julian Sefton-Green, David Smahel, Elisabeth
Staksrud, Anca Velicu, Dylan Yamada-Rice and Bieke Zaman. A special
thank goes also to Nick Couldry and Andreas Hepp who inspired the
theoretical backbone of our understanding of IoToys as media.
We are also grateful to the various opportunities we had to present
and discuss our ideas, namely the Internet of Toys panel organised at
the DigiLitEY meeting in Prague in November 2016; the two sessions
we organised with DigiLitEY colleagues at the Cyberspace Conference
in Brno in November 2017; and finally, the panel at the ICA 2018
Conference in Prague.
We are deeply grateful to our partners, Massimiliano Giacomello and
David Holloway, for their love, patience and support.
Finally, a particular inspiration for both of us comes from children,
first and foremost those in our families: we want to dedicate this book
to Aiden, Angus, Clara and Patrick. We would also like to thank Archie,
Laika and Scout, our non-human companions.
Milan, Italy Giovanna Mascheroni
Fremantle, Australia Donell Holloway
August 2018
Contents
1 Introducing the Internet of Toys 1
Giovanna Mascheroni and Donell Holloway
Part I New Toys, New Play, New Childhood?
2 Asking Today the Crucial Questions of Tomorrow:
Social Robots and the Internet of Toys 25
Jochen Peter, Rinaldo Kühne, Alex Barco,
Chiara de Jong and Caroline L. van Straten
3 The Uncanny Valley Revisited: Play with the Internet
of Toys 47
Jackie Marsh
4 Toying with the Singularity: AI, Automata and
Imagination in Play with Robots and Virtual Pets 67
Seth Giddings
vii
viii Contents
5 Postdigitality in Children’s Crossmedia Play:
A Case Study of Nintendo’s Amiibo Figurines 89
Bjorn Nansen, Benjamin Nicoll and Thomas Apperley
Part II Domesticating the Internet of Toys: Practices
and Contexts
6 The Domestication of Smart Toys: Perceptions
and Practices of Young Children and Their Parents 111
Rita Brito, Patrícia Dias and Gabriela Oliveira
7 An Ecological Exploration of the Internet of Toys
in Early Childhood Everyday Life 135
Lorna Arnott, Ioanna Palaiologou and Colette Gray
8 Persuasive Toy Friends and Preschoolers: Playtesting
IoToys 159
Katriina Heljakka and Pirita Ihamäki
Part III Design and Research Methodologies
9 Designing the Internet of Toys for and with Children:
A Participatory Design Case Study 181
Maarten Van Mechelen, Bieke Zaman, Lizzy Bleumers
and Ilse Mariën
10 Including Children in the Design of the Internet of Toys 205
Dylan Yamada-Rice
11 Testing Internet of Toys Designs to Improve Privacy
and Security 223
Stéphane Chaudron, Dimitrios Geneiatakis,
Ioannis Kounelis and Rosanna Di Gioia
Contents ix
12 Video Methods: Researching Sociomaterial Points-
of-View in Children’s Play Practices with IoToys 241
Thomas Enemark Lundtofte and Stine Liv Johansen
13 Hybrid Methods for Hybrid Play: A Research Toolkit 265
Giovanna Mascheroni and Donell Holloway
Part IV The Political Economy of IoToys
14 The Internet of Toys: Playing Games with Children’s
Data? 285
Ingrida Milkaite and Eva Lievens
15 Covert Advertising on IoToys 307
Esther Martínez Pastor and Patricia Núñez
16 The Industry of Smart Toys: Cultural Implications
from the Political Economy 327
Vilmantė Liubinienė and Ana Jorge
17 Concluding the Internet of Toys 347
Giovanna Mascheroni and Donell Holloway
Index 363