Meet LilyPad Toy Story’s new villain. Only she isn’t a toy – she’s the iPad!
For nearly 30 years, Toy Story has captured the magic of childhood. We’ve watched Woody, Buzz, and their friends navigate jealousy, abandonment, change, and growing up. But in Toy Story 5, Pixar appears ready to tackle a very different challenge: technology.
And this time, the villain isn’t an evil toy, a greedy collector, or a daycare dictator. It’s the iPad. Yes, we chuckled too! Because it is a battle we know all too well.
Toy Story 5 explores what happens when traditional toys compete with digital devices for a child’s attention.
The story centres around Bonnie, whose toys find themselves struggling to stay relevant as she becomes increasingly absorbed by a tablet. For parents, this storyline is uncomfortably familiar because it is a theme that lives in all our lounges.
Many families wrestle daily with questions around screen time. Toys that once sparked creativity, imagination, and social interaction are increasingly less appealing than endless videos, games, and apps available at the tap of a screen. We know the drill – when our kids would rather be playing FIFA online than playing real soccer outside, some of the battle has been lost. This is known as ‘screen displacement’ and simply put, it suggests we ask only one question “What would my child be doing now, if they weren’t on the screen”. If the answer is playing, chatting to us at the table, doing a quick chore, finishing homework, getting better at netball…well, that is displacement personified!
Pixar isn’t suggesting that technology is evil. Neither are we. Instead, the film appears to be asking an important question: What happens when screens start replacing play rather than complementing it?
Why This Matters
Play is more than entertainment for our kids. Play is critical to their development.
When children engage with physical toys, they practise problem-solving, storytelling, emotional regulation, and social skills. Building a fort, creating adventures for action figures, or inventing games with friends develops parts of the brain that passive screen consumption simply doesn’t activate in the same way.
This doesn’t mean all screen time is harmful. Educational apps, creative digital tools, and shared family viewing can all have value. The concern arises when screens become the default activity whenever a child feels bored, frustrated, lonely, or unstimulated.
Boredom, after all, is often where creativity begins.
The Perfect Villain for Our Times
What makes the iPad such an effective “villain” isn’t that it’s bad. It’s that it’s incredibly good at capturing our children’s attention. Unlike previous Toy Story villains who had obvious flaws, technology is far more complicated. Tablets provide entertainment, learning opportunities, connection, and convenience. But they can also crowd out activities that our children need to become better humans – learning how to share, learning how to manage a difficult moment with a friend, in real life, learning how to read the emotional cues in a room, learning how to handbrake their own moodiness instead of just distract themselves with mindless numbing. All of these skills can get lost in the endless doomscroll.
The Klikd Verdict
A big thumbs up from Klikd for dealing with the complexity our children’s online attraction and offline challenges. So take your child (suitable for 7+years) off to the movies this holiday – Toy Story 5 makes for one of Pixar’s most relevant stories yet. And for once, we don’t have to be the bad guys demonising the screen. Instead, our kids won’t be getting a lecture about screen time. Kids of all ages will be happily absorbing powerful messages through the eyes of Woody and Buzz as they fight to remind Bonnie why imagination still matters. And as for us, we get to be the guide alongside, the co-viewers having the conversation.
Because perhaps the real question isn’t whether screens are good or bad.
It’s whether our children still have enough opportunities to create their own adventures when the screen turns off.
Conversation Starters
1. If your toys could talk, what would they say about how much time you spend on screens?
2. What is your favourite way to play without using any technology?
3. I know sometimes if I watch series I don’t get my work done – or worse, I don’t get to play (soccer, bake, walk) with you. When do you think screens really help you… and when do they sometimes get in the way of us having fun together.
4. What is your favourite memory involving a toy, game, or activity that didn’t require a screen?
5. If you could invent a machine that created the perfect balance between screen time and play time, what would it look like?
Stay connected
Sarah and Pam
