This week I bumped into Echodad and “the world’s harshest critics of Alexa skills“, i.e. his 2 kids. Hat tip for the idea by the way!! 😀
I read with particular interest his Medium post on “How Voice Interfaces are infiltrating society and changing our children“, a mockingly deceptive title for a list of witty repartees to all the usual arguments against Voice Assistants and speech interfaces being used by children. Highly enjoyable! 🙂
He addresses the perennial argument about children unlearning good manners, when they interact with VAs too much, and talks about his own experience with his kids assuring us that, actually, children know the difference between a human and a Voice Assistant. Phew, so there is no need to panic that they are going to suddenly be more and more rude to their teachers and grandparents and, hence, no need to reprogram voice interfaces to insist on “Pleases” and “Thank-yous” (Phew, again). I am fully in agreement there.
Similarly, he discusses the argument that children unlearn the importance and necessity of patience in the face of inescapable delays and life’s frustrations, when they can’t instantly get what they want (an answer to an obscure question about the animal kingdom or their favourite YouTube video). This seasoned dad knows that patience is something all kids have always struggled with and have to continually practise at that age. It is part of learning and growing up. And I can attest to that, too. (Oh the tantrums!)
However, in contrast to him, I am not at all comfortable or happy with the idea that my kid would go straight to Alexa or Google or Bixby for an answer to his Space or Transport questions and not even bother approach me. I may well take recourse to voice search myself for the answer, but I want to be the Gatekeeper to the Information Castle and not a passive bystander in his quests for knowledge. At least that’s what I consider as one of my – traditional – roles as a parent and I would like him to think that way too, at least until he is older. And it’s not just a hunch: having studied Psycholinguistics and Child Developmental Psychology at University in an earlier life (last century though!), I know the paramount importance of parental input, continuous feedback and playful interaction in the child’s quality and rate of learning anything, but particularly language.
In this respect, Voice Assistants, Voicebots, Chatbots and Voice Search itself have changed parent-child roles and interaction forever, and neither I nor many people can predict the long-term effect of this societal development. Kids are already and will become more and more independent, for sure, and that is not a negative thing in itself, but will that at the same time make me – as a parent – less dependable and approachable? Will he automatically assume I’m lacking in encyclopaedic knowledge and he that lessen his respect for me? And will the kid get the same quantity and quality of validation cues from Alexa or Google Assistant, as he would have got of me? More soberingly, will it teach kids that they don’t need to rely on or even invest much in relationships with people, because interacting with technology is easier, more fun and safer and more efficient? It’s not just the relationship to the parents we should be worried about, but all other family, work, peer and romantic relationships as well.
I am all for the use of voice interfaces and spoken dialogue systems by adults, e.g. myself, naturally, and my own clients; VUIs have been my bread and butter for decades! Nonetheless, at the risk of sounding like a regressive technophobe, I am vehemently against its use by children and will keep mine shielded for as long as I can manage! It’s already hard to keep him from doing a regular Google voice search for “pictures for buses” (sic). 🤔 😅
