Amazon released new touchscreen tablets last week marketed specifically for toddlers to use, even as a growing body of pediatric research links such devices to developmental problems, emotional dysregulation, and poor eyesight.

“Kids want a real tablet, not a toy,” the Jeff Bezos-founded company said in a press release announcing its Amazon Kids Tablets. Describing the device as age-appropriate for children as young as 3, Amazon encourages parents to make it their child’s “first tablet.”

In sales literature, the company appears to depict the tablets as a digital pacifier, promising parents “All-day battery” to help toddlers “remain seated” during flights and preoccupied during car rides. With a child-sized carrying handle and protective case, they are also designed for children to use independently and take everywhere. “A tablet built to last and go wherever they want. Backpack, back seat, or the kitchen table,” reads Amazon’s ad copy.

University of Michigan professor Jenny Radesky, a pediatrician who has extensively researched screen use among children, said problems can arise when tablets are allowed to serve as a “child’s always-available buddy, meaning it is taken everywhere to help manage the child’s behavior, calm them down, or keep them quiet.”

“One product design that concerned me was the handle — like it’s intended to be carried around like a briefcase or pocketbook on a regular basis,” she added in an interview. “Kids will have enough time in the future when they feel like they need to take a tiny screen everywhere, why start young?”

Radesky, who recently co-authored Connecting: Raising Kids in the Digital World, a book to help parents approach digital media use, also expressed concern over Amazon’s made-for-kids generative AI products, which the company pitches as one of the tablets’ premium features. “AI apps that do a lot of the creative work for kids,” she warned, could stunt their ability to think independently.

On a sales page, Amazon claims the tablets are safe for children to use over prolonged, continuous stretches: “Blue light filtering helps keep kids’ eyes comfortable on long trips or in dim light.” (A 2025 study found that consistent handheld device use was one predictor of nearsightedness in children.)

When reached for comment, an Amazon spokesperson said, “Your assertion that the all-day battery is designed to help toddlers ‘remain seated’ during flights and ‘preoccupied’ during car trips is inaccurate—there is no Amazon messaging that claims this.” (As shown in the “Please remain seated” marketing image above, Amazon does promote the tablets’ battery life as being “Enough for the flight” and “Enough for a road trip.”)

“We build our products with input from research conducted by experts like ConnectSafely, The Digital Wellness Lab at Boston Children’s Hospital, and the Family Online Safety Institute,” the spokesperson added.

Above all, the 8.7- or 11-inch Android tablets, which feature a “vivid display” and “fast” user experience, are marketed as tools to turbocharge childhood development and creativity. “Learning made lovable: Kids can learn colors, shapes, numbers, and more,” one selling point reads.

But the company’s marketing claims do not align with numerous studies tying increased screen time to poorer learning outcomes in children.

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A meta-analysis published last month in JAMA Pediatrics, a peer-reviewed medical journal, found an association between screen exposure and “lower overall academic achievement and language development and with higher internalizing and externalizing behavior problems, emotional problems, and peer problems.” The project pulled from 23 meta-analyses, representing more than 2.8 million children across various age groups.

Sheri Madigan, a University of Calgary psychology professor who led the analysis, told CNN that modern handheld devices could be compounding those associations. While she believes that screens aren’t “inherently bad for children,” Madigan said that they can “crowd out what children really need to thrive, such as sleep, physical activity, human connection, learning, and play.”

Other researchers have found similarly concerning results when studying how handheld devices affect the age groups Amazon is targeting with its new tablets.

While observing 422 children ages 3 to 5, a 2022 study led by Radesky found that mobile device use for calming — in other words, a digital pacifier — was associated with “decreased executive functioning and increased emotional reactivity.” (Executive function refers to memory and problem-solving skills needed for everyday life. Emotional reactivity refers to poor impulse control in response to stress, pain, and other negative feelings.)

The JAMA-published study concluded that “frequent use of mobile devices for calming young children may displace their opportunities for learning emotion-regulation strategies over time.” For that reason, researchers advised pediatricians to consider different calming mechanisms.

“Our research found that using media for behavior regulation and calming was linked with worse emotional control later on,” said Radesky.

A 2024 study involving 315 parents of preschool-aged children in Canada reached a similar conclusion. It found that tablet use among 3.5-year-olds “was associated with more expressions of anger and frustration by the age of 4.5 years. Child proneness to anger/frustration at age 4.5 years was then associated with more use of tablets by age 5.5 years.”

“These results suggest that early-childhood tablet use may contribute to a cycle that is deleterious for emotional regulation,” the study’s authors wrote.

Separate research has found associations between daily use of touchscreen devices and reduced sleep in infants and toddlers.

Even digital programs marketed to parents as learning tools aren’t necessarily beneficial. Radesky took part in a 2021 analysis of the top 100 children’s educational apps for phones and tablets. Overall, researchers found the apps’ educational quality lacking, with free content scoring especially low.

Amazon markets its tablets as tools for “learning,” writing in sales copy: “Kids can learn colors, shapes, numbers, and more with Blippi, Khan Academy, and other favorites.”

Radesky noted that 3- to 5-year-olds can learn “from well-designed educational media,” but said her research has left her “generally skeptical of educational apps, especially when they employ branded characters.”

While “Khan Academy does have an evidence base and is a nonprofit,” she added, “it’s important for parents to know that any 2-dimensional experience on a screen is not going to be as educational as a child exploring the 3-D world through play, crafts, building, or reading.”

Some pediatric research indicates that screen time produces more positive outcomes for children when caregivers join them in the activity.

Likewise, Radesky said she recommends children view media on a “big screen,” rather than a handheld device. “This makes it easier for parents to co-view and monitor what their child is watching,” she said.

Many of the promotional images for Amazon’s Kids Tablets portray a child using a device on their own. One photo repeatedly featured by the company shows a girl playing with a tablet while her father uses his phone on the other side of the room. Another shows an unattended toddler lying on the floor, tapping away at a tablet inches from her face. A third photo shows a child alone in a dark bedroom, her face illuminated by the LED screen pulled close to her eyes.

The images seemingly play into Amazon’s attempt to convince parents that children can safely use the tablets unsupervised. Along with content monitoring and screen time limits that parents can access remotely, the company says the device comes with a “kid-proof bumper” case that “survives the backseat.”

If a parent chooses to give their child a tablet, Radesky said she recommends setting restrictions around meals and bedtime. Device use should also be curtailed during “car rides and the short ‘in-between times’ when kids learn to handle boredom and minor frustrations,” she continued. “Those are actually crucial learning moments — they help our kids be more self-sufficient and attentive.”

The company, meanwhile, suggests bundling its tablets with a wireless “Kids Bluetooth Headset” for “Ages 3-6,” potentially adding another layer of sensory isolation during a critical period for social development.

The tablets also come loaded with two generative AI features: Art Studio for image generation and Storybuilder, a program “where kids use their voice to dream up [stories]… then watch their ideas turn into actual picture books and comic books,” according to an Amazon press release.

Through Stories with Alexa, another AI feature marketed alongside the tablet, Amazon offers “personalized listening experience” based on data collected about “the child’s interests.” The company has a history of alarming data-privacy practices involving children. In 2023, it agreed to a $25 million settlement after the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department sued Amazon for allegedly retaining Alexa voice recordings from children and hindering parents’ requests to delete them.

For her part, Radesky took issue with Amazon’s marketing of generative AI products for children to use in their creative processing. “We are already seeing that teens readily offload their mental work to AI, and in early childhood there are far more downsides,” she explained. “In early childhood, kids are building mental models of how to think, create, and make things up. If they start to expect that AI fills in a lot of the blanks for them, we run the risk of having kids who are much less flexible and generative thinkers.”

Amazon’s Kids Tablets also offer an “ad-free” content guarantee, but only for Kids+ subscribers. The tablets include a free 12-month Kids+ subscription that automatically renews at up to $8.99 per month after the trial ends. On its website, Amazon notes that ads can appear in apps for children whose devices aren’t signed up for the premium subscription.