The Skill AI Can’t Replace — And Why It Starts in the Nursery
What makes us human in an age of artificial intelligence? The answer might begin in the nursery.
As AI continues to reshape the way we live and work, we’re entering an era where raw knowledge is no longer our competitive edge. Algorithms can now code, write legal arguments, compose music, even diagnose illness, often more efficiently than we can. What AI can’t do, is feel.
That’s why emotional intelligence - the ability to understand, manage, and respond to human emotion - is fast becoming the most essential skill of the future. The World Economic Forum lists it as one of the top 10 job skills of the 2020s. Additionally, McKinsey’s research points to emotional and social skills as critical differentiators in an AI-augmented workforce. In short: if the industrial revolution made muscles less essential, AI may be doing the same to our minds. What’s left? Our hearts and emotions.
But here’s the tension: while emotional intelligence is becoming more valuable, our ability to develop it, particularly in children, may be quietly deteriorating and its starting in homes. And we believe that phones, though helpful in many ways, are getting in the way of developing this skill at home.
The Disappearing Face
Infancy is a crucial window for cognitive and emotional development. Studies have shown that a child’s brain doubles in size in the first year, forming up to a million neural connections per second. What drives this growth? Human interaction.
According to researchers at the Harvard Center on the Developing Child, early relationships, especially face-to-face interactions with parents and caregivers, are the single most important factor in healthy brain development. These interactions shape not just language, but emotional regulation, empathy, and self-awareness.
But when parents are routinely distracted by smartphones, those interactions are disrupted. A 2022 study from the University of California found that infants whose parents were frequently on their phones exhibited more signs of stress, lower engagement, and delayed social responses. Other studies have observed a “still face” effect, where a parent’s lack of responsiveness (even briefly) can cause distress in infants and toddlers.
This isn’t about blame. It’s about awareness. Most of us use phones at home, often for good reasons. But small shifts in how and where we use them can make a big difference in how our children feel seen, safe, and connected.
As Dr. Jenny Radesky, a developmental-behavioral pediatrician and lead author of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ guidelines on media use, puts it:
“Young children are wired to seek out interaction. If a parent is looking at a screen, the child may not get the response they need — and that shapes how they begin to understand themselves and others.”
The Rise in Dysregulation
Over the past few years, primary teachers and early childhood educators have been sounding the alarm. Anxiety is up. Attention spans are down. Emotional outbursts are more common. Many initially attributed this to children being “COVID babies”, born or raised in a time of isolation and disrupted learning. And while COVID surely played a role, educators are increasingly suspecting it’s not the full story.
From personal conversations with teachers and support staff, a consistent theme is emerging: kids are entering school with a lower capacity for emotional regulation than ever before. The causes are complex, but screen time is a recurring concern, both in terms of children's use and the impact of distracted parenting.
The science supports this concern. A 2019 study in JAMA Pediatrics found that higher screen time at age two was associated with poorer performance in developmental milestones by age three and five. Another study published in Child Development found that parental smartphone use was correlated with more behavioral problems in children, including hyperactivity, aggression, and withdrawal.
Again, this isn’t about shame, or blame. It’s about understanding. Many of us are doing our best in a world that is designed to keep us distracted. But when we know better, we can begin to choose differently.
Putting Our Phones in Their Place
At Bayit, we believe in creating homes that foster connection, not distraction. That’s why we’re building a community and a movement, and soon, an app, to help families rethink their relationship with technology, and put phones in their place.
But it starts with small shifts. For us, that shift began with a simple, strange object: a Phone Chair. It’s the only place in our house where we scroll. The rest of our home is a phone-free zone, not because we’re anti-tech, but because we are human flourishing and believe presence is sacred.
In an age where AI can outthink us, we need to protect the places where we can still feel. Where we can raise children who know how to regulate emotions, form secure relationships, and respond to the world with empathy and wisdom, this is our superpower that AI can't replace, authentic connection.
We don’t need to be perfect. But we do need to be present.
Sources
World Economic Forum (2020). Future of Jobs Report
Harvard University, Center on the Developing Child: https://developingchild.harvard.edu
Radesky, J. et al. (2016). Mobile and Interactive Media Use by Young Children: The Good, the Bad, and the Unknown.
McKinsey & Company (2023). Defining the skills citizens will need in the future world of work
JAMA Pediatrics (2019). Association Between Screen Time and Children’s Performance on Developmental Screening Tests
Child Development (2022). Parental distraction with phones and child behavior outcomes
