An experiment published in Education and Information Technologies in 2022 found that the negative impact on young children with exposure to IoT was minimal. It helped children in several ways, we will explore these reasons to follow.

The first implication of early-age IoT exposure is the chance to learn ubiquitously. Autonomous learning is a huge part of setting children up for success later in life — one example would be in college where there is no parental figure to make sure they do their work on time or at all. Learning how to problem solve on their own can help both academically and socially. While the first exposure to IoT for children is usually through online gameplay, those experiences do advance the relevant skills in a way that playing with dolls or building blocks could not in the past.

Secondly, these children will grow to understand the difference and connection between the physical and virtual world. In raising a generation of children who could be essentially raised by technology, parents have the opportunity to explore what the digital world could look like for their children as well as how these features are different from that of their physical reality.

A research article by Jackie Marche in Sage Journals discovered that the study child, Amy, over two months of observation, was able to develop agency on how she wanted to play and learn. The study found that by being offered both physical and digital opportunities for play and learning, she was able to experience more complexity in her day-to-day compared to only choosing one type of learning pattern.

Business Insider noted that more than a quarter of the parents surveyed (31%) said their children have had a smartphone between the ages of 6 and 10. These digitally native children have no choice but to transform education with their use of the IoT.