Tech and Today's Kids
by Chris Byrne

If you haunt the quasi-academic circles on the periphery of the toy industry, there is an acronym that is all-too familiar: KGOY (pronounced: Kay-Goy). It stands for Kids Getting Older Younger, and for the past few years, it has been all the rage. People spend a lot of money to go to conferences to hear people hold forth on the issue of how kids are more sophisticated than they were before, and it's the death of the traditional toy business.

From our perspective, this is a lot of high-priced, backward-focused hand wringing, all designed to justify the Ker-Plop of disappointing toys hitting the bargain bins or the pile at the back of the closet.

Such musings and theorizing are mostly irrelevant, not to say totally useless, to parents and consumers who are confronting the fact that their 7-year-old has only passing interest in a doll and would much rather have an iPod. In fact, among kids 8-11 surveyed for the 2004 Holiday season, the top three items on wish lists were: iPods, cell phones and gift cards. Nary a traditional toy in sight.

All of this has prompted some to say that "traditional toys are dead," and engage in all sorts of predictions of the end of the toy business as we knew it. For the record, in the 26 years I've been involved in the toy business, there has always been something that was going to spell disaster for the industry. But, as fate would have it, people have kept reproducing, and, mirabile dictu!, they have kept purchasing toys.

It's just that the toys have changed.

But toys have always changed to reflect the culture at the time. Sure, there will always be staples—board games, tops, marbles, balls, etc. Yet as the culture changes, so will the toys. This is something we want to happen because the nature of toys and play is to prepare children for the world that they will inhabit as adults, not the world of the current adults that is passing into history. As adults, we have to be very careful of applying our own experience and perspective to a child's world rather than embracing inevitable change.

Let's look at this as it relates to toys, historically. In the early years of the 20th century, there were vastly fewer toys, and setting aside those that were for pure entertainment, many of them were role-playing toys. There were toy irons for girls who were going to grow up to be housewives. There were train sets and Erector sets for boys who were going to grow up into an increasingly industrial world. It is not really appropriate to give a girl a large, hot iron to play with. So, she had a smaller one so she could "practice" the role of a woman in the culture. Similarly, one doesn't give boys real girders or trains to play with, so a toy is probably much more appropriate. (In the late 1920s, however, my dad had a solder-making kit—a kind of early Creepy Crawlers thing—that used real melted lead. Not something you would find today.) This mode of play is still around, as the Dora Kitchen Set from Fisher-Price is likely to be one of the best-selling toys this year, but cooking is an activity that's open to boys today, as well.

Fast forward to today. Technology has changed everything. This is a technological world, so it's only logical that toys should reflect that. But there's one more important distinction. While a child still probably can't be given a real steam iron or a real steam shovel, they can operate a computer. There is no barrier of understanding or physical ability between a child and an adult when it comes to operating a computer, downloading from the Internet or playing an iPod. In these cases, the division between "toy" and "adult product" disappears and so it makes perfect sense that a child wants the iPod instead of a toy version of the same thing. (Fortunately, kids can't drive dump trucks, so Tonka is still in business.) Kids want nothing more than to be part of the adult culture, and if the iPod becomes a representation of that, then that is what they want. Further, if there is no barrier to their operating it, perhaps even with more proficiency than an adult, a toy version is, naturally, unacceptable.

This is not, then, KGOY. It is a larger shift in the culture at large, blurring the division between adult and child in terms of an ability to use specific products and as a result changing the desires and consumption patterns and making them closer than in the past. A child who can operate a cell phone is not going to be satisfied with a non-functional toy version of the same, which is one reason you'll see so many phones from toy companies this year. What we have is a world of young people who are ready and able to enter the adult world at younger ages.

But, and this is a huge "but," parents and caregivers make a huge mistake when they assume that a facility with electronics in young peoples signifies a more adult sensibility overall. Kids are still kids. The advanced electronics are a tool they can use, but kids still like things that are more appropriate to their traditional ages, both socially and for entertainment. The issues related to kids lives, particularly among "tweens" and teenagers are virtually unchanged from the 1950s. As humans, we develop emotionally, mentally and physically under a biologically determined process that cannot be accelerated by the acquisition of high tech gizmos. Kids still worry, for instance, about who likes them, what parties they're invited to, who's cool and who's not; they're just more likely to discuss it by IM or text message than hanging out at the malt shop.

Where does this leave the toy industry? Well, as always, it leaves it on the point of evolution, if not revolution. And it leaves it where it always has been—responding to the world and the culture in which it exists. The level of competition has been changed, however, for now you'll see toy companies competing with Apple, Nokia and Sony to deliver appealing products to the tech-savvy kid. That, however, is helping to drive innovation.

What you'll see this year as you begin shopping, particularly for older children, are amazing products from traditional toy companies that are comparable in many ways to adult products. Now, you might not want to give a child a $600 camcorder, but how about a digital camcorder for under $100 that takes great movies, allows a kid to edit films on computer and looks really cool, too? You'll find them from Mattel, Hasbro and MGA Entertainment. Mattel, Enfora, Firefly all have real cell phones for kids—but they include parental controls. Because the parent is still, most often, the "gatekeeper" on these products, kids we have interviewed are far more willing to have the phone the parent gives them rather than insisting on a specific item.

In this vein, Hasbro has an item for younger children called "Chat Now," which marries closed-system walkie-talkies with cell phones. This is one of the best examples of how toys have evolved while still reflecting the adult culture. It's for younger kids—too young to own a cell phone, even one of the ones designed for children under 13—but it works and over a 2-mile radius. What Hasbro has understood in developing this product is that young kids want to feel like they're included in the adult world but their use of such an item will be consistent with their social and emotional development at younger ages. And you're just going to see more of this kind of product as we move into 2006 as toy companies develop their youth electronics businesses. The genius of this type of product is that it delivers the adult experience in a context that is appropriate for the age of the user.

But, wait. Isn't that what toys have always done? Of course it is. The processes of childhood have changed little over the years, though the props change constantly. Of course, there are more challenges for parents in this world, but that's been accelerating since World War II and the rise of media culture. The job is, as it has always been, to raise kids to respond to the world as they find it—and hopefully make it even better by taking a responsible place in society. That's what parents have wanted for centuries, regardless of how their children played.

Phew.

I guess the kids are all right after all.