How are voice assistants hindering cognitive development?

From telling a bedtime story to being a good conversation partner, smart devices with voice activation are also helping in nurturing the kids. However, with the increase in the use of voice assistants, researchers suggest that it may have a great impact on the development of children, especially their cognitive and social development. Moreover, it may also affect their critical thinking analysis, compassion, and empathy.

A few instances of adverse effects can be unsuitable responses, obstacles in learning opportunities, and hindering the development of kids’ social skills. Children attributing human traits and behaviors to objects that are just a collection of taught words and sounds combined to form a sentence is a major cause for concern.

The devices are used by children who imitate them by not altering their emphasis, intonation, tone, or volume. Moreover, another issue is that these machines do not automatically anticipate kids to say thank you or please you.

The kinds of queries that devices can answer are likewise restricted. Children will therefore learn specific types of questioning that always take the form of either a demand. In addition, it can also be tough to differentiate between accents. If a child is extremely young, they may well be unable to pronounce some words properly, which increases the chance that their words will be misunderstood and they will be exposed to improper material.

However, I don't believe there ought to be cause for concern as far as parents adhere to the guidelines for children and have a healthy level of interaction with their caretakers and peers.