The Impact of Technology on Childhood: Introduction

This paper introduces a section of The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child devoted to the impact of technology on childhood. Digital media, and now artificial intelligence, have entered childhood and parenthood faster than our ability to understand their effects. This has happened alongside a documented rise in anxiety, depression, emotional dysregulation, and suicidality among young people. The introduction surveys the growing public response, including litigation, legislation, and school phone policies, and places current fears in historical perspective, beginning with Socrates’ warning about the written word. It argues that “Is AI good or bad for children?” is the wrong question. The more useful questions, asked stage by stage, are what development requires and what screens and AI afford and foreclose. Drawing on infant research, attachment theory, affective neuroscience, and Winnicott, the author emphasizes that self-regulation, theory of mind, the capacity to be alone, and a stable identity are built through real relationships with real people. Particular attention is given to imaginative play between the ages of three and seven. The introduction frames the contributions of Jenny Radesky, Karen Gilmore, and Janet Rotter. It calls on developmentally informed clinicians and educators to help determine how, and under what conditions, technology enters children’s lives.