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Research

Parenting with Alexa: Exploring the Introduction of Smart Speakers on Family Dynamics

Smart speakers have become pervasive in family homes, creating the potential for these devices to influence parent-child dynamics and parenting behaviors. We investigate the impact of introducing a smart speaker to 10 families with children, over four weeks. We use pre- and post- deployment interviews with the whole family and in-home audio capture of parent-child interactions with the smart speaker for our analysis. Despite the smart speaker causing occasional conflict in the home, we observed that parents lever-aged the smart speaker to further parenting goals. We found three forms of influence the smart speaker has on family dynamics: 1) fostering communication, 2) disrupting access, and 3) augmenting parenting. All of these influences arise from a communally accessible, stand-alone voice interface which democratizes family access to technology. We discuss design implications in furthering parenting practices and behaviors as the capabilities of the technology continue to improve.

Read the full paper.

Erin Beneteau

Ashley Boone

Yuxing Wu

Julie A. Kientz

Jason Yip

Alexis Hiniker

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Projects in Health & Well-Being

  • Using Everyday Routines for Understanding Health Behaviors
  • Who Are You Asking?: Qualitative Methods for Involving AAC Users as Primary Research Participants
  • Where Are My Parents?: Information Needs of Hospitalized Children
  • Parenting with Alexa: Exploring the Introduction of Smart Speakers on Family Dynamics
  • “Eavesdropping”: An Information Source for Inpatients
  • Detecting Depression and Predicting its Onset Using Longitudinal Symptoms Captured by Passive Sensing: A Machine Learning Approach With Robust Feature Selection
  • Mobile Assessment of Acute Effects of Marijuana on Cognitive Functioning in Young Adults: Observational Study

News

Alexis Hiniker and Lindah Kotut

iSchool funds studies on smartphone habits, Indigenous guidance

Thursday, July 10, 2025
Two faculty-led research projects recently received grants from the iSchool to help them further their work and create lasting impact with the help of the Strategic Research Fund (SRF). The SRF is a funding opportunity that supports...
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Geethu Devarajan, Rome Lin, Ivy Chen and Jason Sun

MSIM team helps PitchBook handle data requests

Monday, July 7, 2025
PitchBook, a Seattle-based financial data provider, tracks and analyzes information on millions of companies worldwide — from household names to startups just opening their doors. Investors rely heavily on PitchBook's comprehensive data,...
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UW Law Librarianship Reunion

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7:00-7:45PM

iSchool Read-Alongs Series: August

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