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| Yakkity clique : From left: Hello Barbie ($75, toytalk.com), Cognitoys Dino ($120, available for preorder, cognitoys.com), and My Friend Cayla ($60, myfriendcayla.com) Photo: F. Martin Ramin/ The Wall Street Journal |
Talking Toys Are Getting Smarter: Should We Be Worried?
by Geoffrey A. Fowler, The Wall Street Journal,
by Geoffrey A. Fowler, The Wall Street Journal,
17 December 2015
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Internet-connected talking dolls like Hello Barbie that can actually converse are bewitching kids but unsettling parents. Are they really the menace critics have made them out to be?
A FEW WEEKS AGO, I had a play date with an almost-6-year-old who loves, loves, loves Barbie. Riley, as we’ll call her, has four of the dolls and plays with them incessantly. So when Riley’s mother, an old friend, said it would be OK for me to bring over the most technologically advanced Barbie ever created—one that can not only speak but understand what a child is saying and respond appropriately—I suspected Riley would be ecstatic.
Riley’s mother? Not so much. “What does it do to imagination?” she asked. Riley has no problem making up her own adventures. Wouldn’t this toy ultimately stifle Riley’s creativity and supplant free play?
Riley’s mother? Not so much. “What does it do to imagination?” she asked. Riley has no problem making up her own adventures. Wouldn’t this toy ultimately stifle Riley’s creativity and supplant free play?