Toy Story 5’s ‘Lilypad’ is an indictment of the world that birthed the ‘iPad Kid’

Some parents have called tablet computers the "square au pair." (Photo by Danielle Villasana/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

In the trailer for “Toy Story 5,” a little girl named Bonnie is playing with her toys when a package arrives in the mail.

She opens it to find Lilypad, a tablet for children.

The iconic toys from the series — Woody, Buzz Lightyear, the Potato Heads, Forky and Slinky Dog – then watch in dismay as Bonnie casts them all aside in favor of the bright tablet screen. Rex the dinosaur exclaims, “What? Extinction? Not again!”

The film zeros in on a uniquely 21st-century phenomenon: the “iPad kid,” a term used – often disparagingly – to describe a generation of children who grew up enchanted by screens.

A lot of the discussion around tablet use among kids shames parents, framing it as an example of lazy or bad parenting. Yet factors such as long working hours and lack of access to affordable childcare compel many parents to rely on tablets.

As a scholar of the attention economy — and also as a mom to a 4-year-old — I’ve noticed a disconnect between the resources U.S. society offers parents versus what’s expected of them in the digital age.

 

The pandemic and the ‘square au pair’

When the first “Toy Story” came out in 1995, many single-income families could still afford to comfortably raise multiple kids. It was more common for new parents to live near their extended families, such as grandparents, to provide childcare support. Federal policies provided some low-income families with cash assistance that helped ease the cost of transition to parenthood.

Since then, parenting has become a lot more challenging. Single-income households with kids under 18 have steadily declined as wages have stagnated, forcing both parents into the workforce. At the same time, it’s harder to qualify for government benefits.

Even when moms do earn a paycheck, working moms experience what sociologists call the “motherhood penalty” – career disadvantages, such as lower wages and promotion barriers, due to childbirth – even as U.S. parental leave policies remain weak.

So it’s hardly a surprise that fewer Americans are choosing to become parents under these conditions. But those who did have kids in the years leading up to 2020 ran smack into the COVID-19 pandemic.

The lockdown that started in March 2020 following the outbreak of the pandemic led to closures of schools and many workplaces. Many parents either worked from home or provided critical work in grocery stores and hospitals. Kids stayed home and schools transitioned to remote-learning models.

It’s important to remember that many institutions with social legitimacy and authority encouraged the use of tablets during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns.

School systems around the world normalized their use for remote learning. Children as young as 4 were given tablets, which gave their parents space to complete their own remote work and other household tasks, with some moms referring to it as “the square au pair.”

In this sense, the tablet became a form of school-sanctioned childcare.

Economic activity was minimally disrupted. Productivity hummed along. And the kids? Comfortably distracted.

 

For some households, there’s little choice

When lockdowns ended, tablets remained integrated into the education system. In 2021, 4 in 5 U.S. households with children had a tablet. Beyond schoolwork, kids also use tablets for activities, such as video games and watching TV.

The adverse impacts of excessive screen time in general has been well documented for decades. But scholars have only recently unpacked the specific harms of interactive tablet use among young children.

Children who use tablets are more likely to experience emotional dysregulation and dependency on screens. Researchers have also found tablet use among kids to be significantly associated with ADHD diagnoses.

At the same time, research shows screen time use among children is tied to social class.

Parents from working- and middle-class households are more likely to rely on screens compared to high-income parents, who can hire childcare services, such as full-time nannies.

Parental education is also a factor. Americans generally have little grasp of digital hygiene – knowledge about best practices to minimize negative effects of screens. But households with parents who didn’t graduate from college are even more in the dark.

And while schools hand out tablets, most of them fail to provide students and families with a comprehensive education on the adverse impacts of excessive screen time.

In other words, this isn’t a Generation Alpha problem. Most people — adults included, with or without children — aren’t properly educated and informed about their choices around technology use. Yet adults continue to be shamed if they hand their kid a tablet. All the while, parents navigate the added burdens of challenging the educational status quo around tablets.

 

Frankenstein’s village

When work is the only sturdy pillar in a society where government benefits for low-income people, family ties and community institutions have eroded, tablets replace the metaphorical village — the web of social support that helps families thrive.

In pursuit of jobs or affordable housing, many young parents move farther from their extended families and the communities where they grew up. The working parents who are forced to rely on daycare — sending kids as young as a few weeks old — end up spending an exorbitant amount of money on the service.