Mindful AI tools for kids
A playful exploration into AI as a tool to support children's mental health
Ben Melvin, Léa Berger, Lucy Williams, Dan Lloyd, Jo Barnard
Morrama concept
2024
If Gen-Z are the digital natives, the children born today will be AI natives; growing up in a world where AI is part of everyday life.
The majority of 8-14 year olds in the UK already know about AI and believe it has the power to be helpful. With this in mind, and concerned about the growing number of children with mental health disorders, the Morrama team have explored how AI tools might be able to positively impact young children, particularly in the home environment.
The NHS states that 1 in 5 young people with a mental health disorder and, as of March 2024, over 250,000 children are waiting for mental health support. This support, particularly in younger children under 11, is typically counselling, coaching and therapy. With AI ‘chat bots’ already providing an alternative to in-person therapy, we see an opportunity for this to evolve and become more nuanced; seamlessly integrating into objects that children regularly interact with.
Combining machine learning data-analysis, with creative tools and stimuli for communication, we’ve created four near-future Mindful AI tools designed to support children aged 6+ with managing emotions, exploring their creativity, building connections and finding an escape. Working with a child psychiatrist, we aim to highlight both the need and opportunity for tech to create a more tailored, creative and responsive home environment for young children.
The design of the four objects is playful and engaging, with a bold use of colour. As we’ve seen with the latest designs from Nothing’s CMF collection, we are past the point of ‘smart’ technology needing to look ‘high tech’. These are objects designed to bring joy and connection alongside the more serious benefits of mindfulness and mental health monitoring.
Calm
Capturing the essence of a fidget spinner, Calm seeks to act as a way for a child to release anxiety whilst capturing a wellbeing snapshot of the child through sweat, motion and heart rate sensors. With a design that can be compressed and squeezed, Calm has built in sweat, heart rate and motion sensors to capture intensity and frequency of interactions. This data input feeds into and helps tailor the experience of the other three devices.
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Comfort
As adults we can venture out to places to ‘escape’, but kids do not have this freedom. Comfort is a small projector with a built-in speaker that responds to the child’s requests with images and sounds. Be it an imaginative landscape, educational setting or a safe comforting visual.
Connect
Children need to grow up able to talk to someone they trust. Connect is an AI companion that encourages and facilitates interaction between the parent/primary caregiver and child, asking questions, facilitating conversation and encouraging close interaction with its touch sensitive petals.
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Create
Taking the classic colouring book to a new level, Create takes the spoken prompts of the child and generates line drawing for them to colour, simple puzzles and stimulating templates to facilitate their creativity needs. Like midjourney for children, Create familiarises kids with interacting with AI.
“Obviously there will always be those who question putting more powerful technology into the hands of children, but the potential for support, creativity and communication that AI enabled objects such as these could bring to the children of tomorrow is boundless and exciting.”
- JO BARNARD
Whilst these currently live as concepts, these mindfulness tools highlight the future role AI will play in the home environment, particularly in supporting the wellbeing, creativity and family connection of young children.
If you are interested in continuing this conversation, please get in touch at info@morrama.com.
For our press pack, including high res images, please email: press@morrama.com.
For our press pack, including high res images, please email: press@morrama.com.
