An Ecological Exploration of the Internet of Toys in Early Childhood Everyday Life

Abstract

This chapter explores children’s use of Internet-connected toys in everyday life. Informed by a socio-ecological model, we consider children’s and practitioners’ agency in their use of IoToys. Our finding suggests that digital childhoods are messy, multifaceted, multi-modal and ultimately complex, and as such the digital lives of young children cannot be compartmentalised across various bounded systems. As our data show, IoToys create a synergy between digital and non-digital spaces. Similarly, children’s interactions with IoToys and with other children around IoToys are inseparably linked across the individual, the interpersonal and the community (Rogoff in Pedagogy and practice: Culture and identities, pp. 58–74, 2008) in digital and non-digital spaces.