Toy Story 5's real screen lesson for parents

Toy Story 5 asks parents to reckon with a smartphone-shaped change to childhood. Directors Andrew Stanton and Kenna Harris recast the fifth installment as a referendum on parenting in the digital age, refusing to blame children for the way they respond to devices.

Bonnie, the lead human, behaves as Lilypad — the stand-in iPad — was designed to make her behave. The film points squarely at the adults who handed technology to kids without understanding it. Jessie sees Bonnie disappearing and at first tries to restore the old normal by removing the screen, but Stanton and Harris argue that denying technology isn’t a cure: parents can’t solve a technological problem by pretending the technology doesn’t exist.

Toy Story 5 enters a broader cultural debate about how ubiquitous devices reshaped childhood — a shift Jonathan Haidt labeled “The Great Rewiring of Childhood” — and about the rise in anxiety and depression linked to social-media-enabled devices after 2012.

toy story, parents, smartphone, devices, childhood, andrew stanton, kenna harris, bonnie, anxiety, depression