An ecological exploration of the Internet of Toys in early childhood everyday life

Throughout this chapter, the focus is on the importance of children’s agency in their use of Internet of Toys (IoToys). We think about children’s capabilities as part of digitally mediated eco-communities. Informed by the socio-ecological model, children’s, practitioners’ and parents’ dispositions helped contextualise the factors that shape children’s use of IoToys.

We provide the following key messages throughout the chapter:
1.A discussion of passivity or empowerment as part of children’s digital lives with IoToys, in line with Craft’s (2013) work.
2.A reanalysis of perceptions of childhood in the digital age, linking to the sociological models of childhood and the role of children as competent and agentic.
3.An account of socio-ecological influences on digital lives, likened to Rogoff’s (2008) three planes relating to individual, interpersonal and community alongside a discussion of how the interpersonal plane can be reimagined to include interactions between child and machine.
4.A note of caution against the passive child agenda and recurrent moral panic.