Millions of parents rely on voice assistants to help with increasingly difficult kids’ homework

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  • Two thirds of parents admit to asking voice assistants such as Amazon Alexa and Google Home to help with their children’s homework
  • Three quarters of parents say schoolwork is getting harder
  • History, geography and maths are the toughest subjects
  • New data from TalkTalk reveals 47% increase in smart plugs that are typically used with voice assistants
  • TalkTalk’s Internet Insights report reveals 2022’s emerging internet usage trends

 

24th May 2022: With exam season around the corner, more than two thirds (68%) parents are turning to voice assistants such as Amazon Alexa and Google Home to combat the increasing difficulty of their children’s homework, according to new research from TalkTalk*.

Smart plugs that are typically used to connect voice assistants to a power source – have increased by 47% on TalkTalk’s network over the past year, according to new data from the connectivity provider**.

A factor behind the increasing use of voice assistants to help with questions is that parents agree that their children’s homework is getting harder. Three quarters (75%) say schoolwork is more difficult now than when they were at school, while more than half (52%) admit to having given wrong answers to their children’s homework.

Two thirds (66%) of parents admit that they feel embarrassed when they don’t know the right answers in front of their kids. In an attempt to hide their knowledge gaps, more than half (55%) have secretly used smart tech to answer their children’s questions and a third (35%) do the same from their partner or family.   

According to TalkTalk’s research, the toughest subjects to help their children study for are history, geography and maths. More than half of parents needed assistance answering Key Stage 2 questions, such as the names of King Henry VIII’s wives.

Top 10 questions parents most commonly ask their voice assistants*:

  1. What are the names of King Henry VIII’s wives? (73%)
  2. What is the Pythagoras theorem? (67%)
  3. How many people are there in the world to the nearest billion? (66%)
  4. Which festival is known as the festival of colours? (64%)
  5. Which festival is called the festival of light? (56%)
  6. When was the Great Fire of London? (56%)
  7. Which is the longest river on Earth? (54%)
  8. How to do long multiplication or division without a phone/calculator (54%)
  9. What era did the dinosaurs live in? (51%)
  10. How many states are there in the U.S.? (51%)

Jonathan Kini, Managing Director at TalkTalk, said: “Our latest Internet Insights report reveals how we’re living in a golden age of gadgets. Across our network, customers are embracing the smart tech takeover, as am I – just the other day I found myself using our voice assistant to help with my son’s homework.

“Broadband usage is only going to rise further, which is why we're constantly investing in our network to deliver greater speed and reliability so customers can continue to stream and game to their heart’s content.”

Voice assistants look set to stay as a key homework aid. 56% of parents have purchased new smart device technology in the last year purely to make their day-to-day lives easier, with more than eight in ten (84%) agreeing that having access to fast, reliable internet helps their child to learn

TalkTalk’s latest Internet Insights report offers a glimpse into some of Britain’s most interesting broadband habits. For more information, read the full report HERE .

NOTES

*National poll of 1,002 parents by Mortar Research in April 2022. Mortar Research are accredited by the Market Research Society (MRS) and the polling adhered to MRS guidelines.

** TalkTalk Internet Insights data taken from several cohorts of customers in various departments across TalkTalk consumer and business