The Allure of the Anti-Screen-Time Toy

Bondu is a stuffed dinosaur containing an AI chatbot that can speak 27 languages and respond to children with games, homework help, and answers to questions. It includes a “bedtime mode” with breathing exercises and stories. The product is marketed as a playmate, confidant, teacher, and quasi-caregiver, with emphasis on safety controls. Parents can review conversations through an app, and the system is described as adapting to a child’s mood, interests, and age. Bondu is repeatedly promoted as “screen-free,” positioning it as an alternative to screen time, which is widely viewed as problematic by pediatric and early-childhood guidance. The appeal also reflects the practical need to occupy children during daily tasks.

"Bondu is a stuffed dinosaur that speaks 27 languages. It-or, more precisely, the AI chatbot embedded inside it-can also play games, help with homework, and patiently answer a child's questions, even the really inane ones. Its "bedtime mode" includes breathing exercises and stories. Bondu, which costs $300 and comes in four colors, is marketed as a playmate, a confidant, a teacher, a quasi-caregiver."

"The ads take pains to talk up its safety controls, including an app that allows parents to review the conversations that Bondu is having with their child, as well as its ability to adapt to a child's mood, interests, and age. And they emphasize, repeatedly, that the product is "screen-free.""

"In one testimonial posted to Bondu's website, a girl who looks to be about 4 years old chitchats about baby animals with her Bondu, whom she has named Rosie. The video cuts to a mom sitting cross-legged on the floor and smiling into a front-facing camera. "Camryn truly loves sharing about her day with her Bondu," she says. "And I love that it's something she can interact with that isn't a screen.""

"Screen time can be a problem-the American Academy of Pediatrics says so; many early-childhood educators say so; well-meaning in-laws do too. Unfortunately, screen time also rocks, in that it is about the only way to occupy a child while you wash the dishes or have a little lie-down or go to work or do any of the other necessary or pleasurable activities life demands and invites. The one thing that feels more urgently worse than plopping a kid in front of the TV is the desperation that forces it."

Read at The Atlantic