Children and AI

Beschreibung

'It’s brave to survey the landscape of children’s engagement with artificial intelligence at a time when innovation and societal developments are rapidly escalating, fragmenting and, at times, conflicting. Siibak and Mascheroni do us the great service of identifying and interpreting these important changes in an integrative and insightful manner.'
—Sonia Livingstone, Professor of Social Psychology, LSE, UK

This Palgrave Pivot book examines how AI‑based technologies shape children’s everyday lives and imagines possible digital futures. Drawing on qualitative interviews and a child‑rights approach, the authors map how new AI tools are used and understood at home, at school, and among peers. They trace shifts in family routines; education, care, and health practices; and peer cultures associated with AI; cutting through the current hype to assess both promises and risks.

Building on prior work on the datafication of childhood and family life, Children and AI: Changing Digital Childhoods? rethinks AI’s implications for children’s wellbeing, rights, and life chances amid rapid market diffusion. It highlights potential harms, including widening digital divides and privacy violations, and calls for child‑centred, safety‑by‑design legal and policy frameworks. Timely and interdisciplinary, it will interest scholars, students, and policymakers across childhood studies, digital and family sociology, internet studies, children’s rights, and education.

Andra Siibak is Professor of Media Studies and Deputy Head of Research and Development at the Institute of Social Studies, University of Tartu, Estonia. With Giovanna Mascheroni, she co‑authored Datafied Childhoods: Data Practices and Imaginaries in Children’s Lives (2021).

Giovanna Mascheroni is Professor in the Department of Communication, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Italy, and a sociologist of digital media. Her work focuses on the social shaping and consequences of digital media, datafication, and AI for children and young people.

This Palgrave Pivot book examines how AI‑based technologies shape children’s everyday lives and imagines possible digital futures. Drawing on qualitative interviews and a child‑rights approach, the authors map how new AI tools are used and understood at home, at school, and among peers. They trace shifts in family routines; education, care, and health practices; and peer cultures associated with AI; cutting through the current hype to assess both promises and risks.

Building on prior work on the datafication of childhood and family life, Children and AI: Changing Digital Childhoods? rethinks AI’s implications for children’s wellbeing, rights, and life chances amid rapid market diffusion. It highlights potential harms, including widening digital divides and privacy violations, and calls for child‑centred, safety‑by‑design legal and policy frameworks. Timely and interdisciplinary, it will interest scholars, students, and policymakers across childhood studies, digital and family sociology, internet studies, children’s rights, and education.

Autor*in

Andra Siibak

Themen in »Children and AI«

artificial intelligence AI children's rights digital childhood parenting apps datafication of childhood and family life automated communication smart assistants family sociology baby tech products edtech digital divides human-machine communication AI-based technologies intersectional biases

Stimmen zu »Children and AI«

“It’s brave to survey the landscape of children’s engagement with artificial intelligence at a time when innovation and societal developments are rapidly escalating, fragmenting and, at times, conflicting. Siibak and Mascheroni do us the great service of identifying and interpreting these important changes in an integrative and insightful manner.” (Professor Sonia Livingstone, LSE)

“Children and AI offers a timely, rigorous, and deeply needed examination of how artificial intelligence is reshaping childhood. Siibak and Mascheroni move beyond technological hype to situate AI within broader processes of datafication, inequality, and mediatization, while keeping children’s lived experiences at the center. Drawing on rich cross-national research, they illuminate both the promises and the structural risks of predictive and generative systems in young people’s everyday lives. This book challenges us to think critically about agency, rights, and responsibility in AI-shaped contexts. An essential resource for scholars, educators, policymakers, and anyone invested in children’s digital futures.” (Professor Jessica Piotrowski, University of Amsterdam)

“Without resorting to utopian or dystopian extremes, Andra Siibak and Giovanna Mascheroni provide a rich map of the ways Artificial Intelligence (AI) is part of children's lives, driven by the voices of European teens whose stories are the heart of this important book. AI is already woven into the everyday. Children and AI offers a timely range of perspectives, questions and concerns that we all need to consider as we navigate how AI will impact on the young people in our lives. Whether you’re a parent, educator, policy maker, or pretty much anyone else, this book will matter to you.” (Tama Leaver, Professor on Internet Studies at Curtin University and a Chief Investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child)

“Children and AI explores the profound ways artificial intelligence is penetrating the experiences of growing up in the 21st century. Drawing on rich empirical research, Andra Siibak and Giovanna Mascheroni illuminate how AI technologies—from smart toys to educational apps—interact with children’s learning, play, and social relationships. This groundbreaking book goes beyond abstract debates about algorithms and data, centering the voices and experiences of children themselves. It reveals their creativity, agency, and resilience, even as they navigate complex digital landscapes shaped by AI. Thoughtful, accessible, and urgently relevant, Children and AI offers insights for parents, educators, policymakers, and researchers alike, guiding us toward ethical and empowering approaches to childhood in an increasingly AI-driven world. A must-read for anyone concerned with the future of children and technology.” (Prof. Leopoldina Fortunati, University of Udine)

“Time constraints, social expectations, academic demands and other exigencies have children and parents increasingly turning to AI-based tools and services to manage their relationships and their lives, but at what cost? In this theoretically grounded and empirically rich book, authors Andra Siibak and Giovanna Mascheroni offer an up-to-the-minute snapshot not only of how young people in their respective countries of Estonia and Italy use these technologies, but how they *relate to and feel about* them. Giving important context to the economics and political dynamics undergirding the creation and promulgation of these tools, *Children and AI* is an important and nuanced addition to one of the central social debates of our time, resisting hype while informing and educating. This essential book illuminates affective and practical costs and benefits of the ubiquity of these technologies in everyday life, for children, their families, and, thus, for society.” (Prof. Sarah T. Roberts, UCLA)

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