A survey carried out by a magazine in May revealed that smartphone mania drives families apart. As China has more than 690 million mobile subscribers, Chinese education entrepreneurs presented how smartphones can also be used as a tool to build family bonds.
Li Bai, founder of Babycan, a startup education company that focuses on the development of family-play applications, said that people must realize that no one can live without cellphones nowadays.
“Instead of refuting that fact, seeing smartphones as a poison and avoiding them at all costs, why not take advantage of the new technology and develop it into a parent aid?" asked Li.
Li’s family-play cellphone application received significant attention for the way it used technology to serve family relationships, at the assembly of the World Organization for Early Childhood Education in Washington this July.
China, with 120 million families having children under age six, has a potentially huge market for family-play development.
The application includes 1,000 activities, allowing parents and children to play together regardless of time or location. When users submit information about their children, such as gender and age, the application then recommends suitable activities.
"For example, when a family waits for food at a restaurant and the child gets bored and agitated, parents can choose the 'restaurant' scenario and quickly learn a restaurant activity, playing with the child," Li said.
In the restaurant activity, the player sprinkles salt and pepper on a table and rubs a straw between a set of hands. Then a straw appears above the table. Pepper clings first to the straw, then the salt clings as the straw gets closer.
"Straw, pepper and salt are all commonly seen items in a restaurant. Once parents demonstrate the activity, children can explore it themselves," Li said. "The activities are not simply cartoons that can attract children's attention and free up parents, but require parent and children's participation and interaction."
Li added that many parents do not know how to play with children. The application collects information about the children's development and can recommend suitable activities, according to responses and preferences.
"We are in the midst of a constantly changing society. Children's activities have changed as well," Li said.