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.
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Arnott, L., Palaiologou, I., Gray, C. (2019). An Ecological Exploration of the Internet of Toys in Early Childhood Everyday Life. In: Mascheroni, G., Holloway, D. (eds) The Internet of Toys. Studies in Childhood and Youth. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10898-4_7
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