Alexa and Siri ‘teaching kids to be nasty to parents and teachers’
Voice-activated assitants are spoiling children who get used to barking orders at bots without ever saying "please" or "thank you"
THE Alexa generation of children risk being rude to people because they are used to barking orders at a device, a report says.
Figures show that 42 per cent of kids aged nine to 16 use voice recognition gadgets such as Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa for help with homework.
The report by the Childwise agency warns the nature of the devices, which carry out orders even if not told “please” or “thank you”, could see kids starting to communicate differently with peers.
Research director Simon Leggett said: “Will children become accustomed to saying and doing whatever they want to a digital assistant?
"‘Do this, do that’ – talking as aggressively or rudely as they like without any consequences?
"Will they then start doing the same to shop assistants or teachers?”
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The report found that younger children are more likely to use the digital helpers than older children — with less than half of 15 and 16-year-olds who have one at home saying they used it.
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Users also have more issues forming social relationships, say experts from Nottingham Trent University.