It’s the age of the connected baby. But do we need monitors on babies that tell us when they turn over? Of course not.
But we have the technology that allows us to know that. So, Silicon Valley and its army of venture capitalists have decided that we all need to know when babies move at 3am.
This is the push of senseless technology rather than the pull of stuff that solves a parent’s problems. We’re told that the chance to know when a baby moves is the chance to intervene and impact a baby in some remarkable, digital age way. It’s junk tech
This is a case of junk tech (a motion sensor in a onesie) looking for a solution (any marketing angle that will push a nervous mother to believe she needs a digital onsie). Information, nervous parents have been lead to believe, creates the opportunity for every dozing infant to be one step ahead of her nursery mates.
More valuable than the margin created by a smart onesie is the fact that the connected baby creates behavioral surplus to be scraped for reuse and resale. Infants are the next frontier for an industry desperate to dig deep into our personal lives to render the personal day-to-day information accessible for a secretive business model. Information that can be used to sell, and ultimately manipulate, the behavior of the parents connected to the internet of onesies.
Take it from a pediatrician: Let sleeping babies lie. Or turn. Disconnected and free of the Internet.
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Image via Hu Chen on Unsplash