Poddy

design for children industrial design concept design ux/ui human centered design

10.3

is the average age for kids to get their first smartphone.

Influence Central, 2016

11.4

is the average age for kids to subscribe to their first social media.

Influence Central, 2016

44%

of 8 to 16 year olds are online constantly, with social media, chat apps and
entertainment sites among the preferred activities.

Kapersky Lab, 2016

25%

of children under the age of six has a smartphone.

Liam Howley, musicMagpie, 2018

£500

is how much three quarters of British parents paid in 2016 for their child’s first phone with two-thirds admitting they don’t cap the monthly spend.

Liam Howley, musicMagpie, 2018

10%

of children who use mobile phones have gone without eating or sleeping due to time spent on the internet.

GSMA&Docomo, 2014

38%

of children who use smartphones felt anxious when they couldn’t use the internet, with children tending to feel this more as they grew older.

GSMA&Docomo, 2014

*

Data were collected by private companies, public organisations and indipendent journalists, during researches spreading from 2014 to 2018 in United States, Europe and Japan .

The Challenge

This project has the aim to solve the unmet needs of nowadays parents towards techonology, helping them to educate their children to the internet usage of their first smartphone. This device is designed for children between 6 and 12 years old, range within most of minors get their very first own smartphone.

Within the last 5 to 8 years many researches put the attention on the side effects of the consistent digital presence of children and pre-teens. Today is easy to get 100gb data plan for as little as 10€ per month. This has led to a devaluation of online connection and sometimes to abuses, considering normality the constant and ever-present connection through smartphones.

This device is meant to be a tool to help educate and raise awareness about the use of internet connection. The project is based on the idea internet connection doesn't have to be due or taken for granted but can be somehow earned. This process can help kids and pre-teens to develop and mature a consciousness about being online, which will lead them towards what Lenhart defines a “responsible digital adulthood”.

The Approach

The main focus of this project was set around the fact data-regulating apps for children are not enough, considering the data regulation as something limiting and not educating the kid. Moreover these apps are not impacting the amount of time spent connected to wifi in the domestic context.

This statement brought to a broader conception of the problem and set the rules for a new product, both regulating the data availability on the phone plan out of home and the amount of time spent connected to the wifi at home.

The concept of charging the phone with data and duration of wifi connection came up.

Just like a battery charge, the connection charge needs a place to put the phone and requires the user to wait until the charge is full. In this way the usage of internet connection takes value and loses its feature of immediacy and limitlessness.

The Solution

Poddy is a device that combines a wifi router and a pod where the phone battery is charged thanks to wireless or usb charger. Data as well as duration of wifi connection are conceptually collected. The device in fact collects the amount of time the phone remains untouched on the pod and converts it on data and duration of wifi connection, later on transferred to the kid's phone from the provider.

Doing so the device becomes the link between the regulator figures of parents and the kid, who's managing on his own the usage of internet connection. In this way the device allows a raise of autonomy and consciousness by the user and proposes consistent amount of screen-free time.

Finally, routinely charging the phone on a decicated location helps to break the tendence of carrying around the phone and leaves the phone far from the kid during the night sleep.