Have you ever wonder why do the kids use their parents’ mobile phones? Two weeks ago, I was starting my work on a personal project, and here is everything I had learned about parents using smartphones to entertain their kids.

Actually, the thing is I didn’t know anything about how kids act nowadays. The first question that I asked myself was, how do the children behave nowadays? I needed to do detailed research and take the user’s focus to the next level.

Research:

I did a quick research over the internet. What were the feelings about this particular topic? First, I could discover there was general unrest about the relation between kids and ‘digital stuff’. Tons of articles were saying how badly that could affect the youngsters.

I wasn’t minding my own business.

Let’s ask

If digital devices were doing something wrong with the kids, who is better to solve all my doubts than their parents? I threw a questionnaire searching for answers, but I was really worried about parents didn’t been honest. As I said, it is a very sensitive issue because digital is seen as a creator of bad behavior on kids, so parents could have gotten defensive. To solve this, every question had similar aims but was written in different ways. They couldn’t get away from telling the truth.

Firstly, I asked What devices their kids do use? and most of them respond to me ‘None’. Then, It raises some questions ahead, parents had to answer What do their kids use their parents’ cellphone for? and only 2% answered, they don’t use it at all.

I was already getting so many interesting researches that could be used on my future products, but it was important to deepen a bit more, so I scheduled an interview.

In short, parents use smartphones to distract their children quickly and effectively. Also, there is the factor of avoiding scolding them in public. The context is almost always in crowded places, either with known or unknown people. At the same time, kids want parents to pay attention to them. Or even just to be given feedback about whatever they are doing, someone saying how good they do something, clapping around when they’re done with a task…

Should I design a product that kids could interact with while parents are ‘busy’?

I was struggling with an ethic issue. It didn’t feel okay to produce an idea that will make parents ignore their kids and their education. Something was missing.

Where’s the spotlight?

Doing a user persona and his journey helped me to get into the users’ skin. The common characteristics drawn from the research were synthesized in one person, and the pain moments they had along the journey.

Helena (our kid-persona) is bored as long as she doesn’t have anything to do. Carlos (our dad-persona) don’t know how to take care of Helena while he’s cooking, and try to mollycoddle her. Carlos is worried about his kid using the phone (he’s the one that gave it to her)

Something was clear, nowadays parents are trying to raise their children like they were raised, but that’s not possible, because the context is different. They don’t know how to make their children use technology without influencing their education.

Right now, this problem is approached by using parental control, timetables, restrictions or even avoiding using digital devices at home. But that’s not fixing anything. Not trying to sound paranoid, but screens are everywhere, is not like that’s something someone could take control of.

Was there anything to do about it?

Dealing the two sides

I say yes

First things first, let’s answer this post’s title. Yes, kids should use digital devices, why not? They are growing in a world where almost everything is digitalized, they will need to use it. Even schools’ books are not on paper anymore, do parents want their little boys and girls to be below the standards? The main problem is the possible addiction they can generate, but that could be prevented.

Conclusion

The outcome wasn’t what I expected, but I’m not saying that in a bad way. Since it was a personal project, I was engaged with it. Each goal was covered and the problem is solved. Every little detail I found was analyzed in order to find the right solution.