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

In the trailer for “,” 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 “,” 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 , framing it as an example of lazy or bad parenting. Yet factors such as compel many parents to rely on tablets.

– 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 to comfortably raise multiple kids. It was more common for new parents to live , to provide childcare support. Federal policies that helped ease the cost of transition to parenthood.

Since then, parenting has become a lot more challenging. with kids under 18 have steadily declined as wages have stagnated, forcing both parents into the workforce. At the same time, .

And even when moms do earn a paycheck, working moms experience what sociologists call the “” – career disadvantages, such as lower wages and promotion barriers, due to childbirth – even as .

So it’s hardly a surprise that fewer Americans . 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 .

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 . Children , which gave their parents space to complete their own remote work and other household tasks, with some moms referring to it as “.”

In this sense, the tablet became a form of .

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

For some households, there’s little choice

When lockdowns ended, into the education system. In 2021, with children had a tablet. Beyond schoolwork, kids also use tablets for .

The adverse impacts of excessive screen time in general has been 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 on screens. Researchers have also found tablet use among kids to be .

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

Parents from working- and middle-class households are , who can hire childcare services, such as full-time nannies.

is also a factor. Americans generally – knowledge about best practices to minimize negative effects of screens. But households with .

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

In other words, this isn’t a problem. Most people – adults included, with or without children – aren’t properly educated and informed about their choices around technology use. 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, – the web of social support that helps families thrive.

In pursuit of jobs or affordable housing, many young parents move and the communities where they grew up. The working parents who are forced to rely on daycare – – end up .

Meanwhile, the persistence of traditional gender roles ensures that many moms : cook, clean and care for children. No matter how are, they cannot afford to hire help as the hit historic highs.

Big Tech takes advantage of this crisis with a “solution” that ultimately treats children as products, manipulating their emotions . As I argue in my book, “,” children’s dependency on screens is a key component of the attention economy.

The earlier a life is monetized, the longer it is profitable.

“Toy Story 5” and its critical take on the tablet may be helpful. But it will take more than a blockbuster movie to protect small kids . Instead, I think it will require strong parental leave policies, expansive and affordable childcare access, fair wages and shared household labor.

In other words, there needs to be .