%0 Journal Article
%T Exploring the affordances of smart toys and connected play in practice
%A Giovanna Mascheroni
%A Liam Berriman
%J New Media & Society
%@ 1461-7315
%D 2019
%R 10.1177/1461444818807119
%X What does children¡¯s play look like in the smart toy era? What conceptual frameworks help make sense of the changing practices of children¡¯s connected play worlds? Responding to these questions, this article re-frames discussions about children¡¯s smart toy play within wider theoretical debates about the affordances of new digital materialities. To understand recent transformations of children¡¯s play practices, we propose it is necessary to think of toys as increasingly media-like in their affordances and as connected to wider digital material ecosystems. To demonstrate the potential of this conceptual approach, we explore illustrative examples of two popular smart ¡®care toys¡¯. Our analysis identifies three examples of affordances that smart care toys share with other forms of mobile and robotic media: liveliness, affective stickiness and portability. We argue that locating discussions of smart toys within wider conceptual debates about digital materialities can provide new insights into the changing landscape of children¡¯s play
%K Affordances
%K children
%K connected play
%K digital materialities
%K smart toys
%U https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1461444818807119