In the digital era, children’s smartwatches, as technological artifacts deeply embedded in daily lives, are systemically negotiating the pathways of children’s socialization. Based on a functionalism perspective, this study examines the adjustment effects of smartwatches on the core dimensions of children’s socialization-cognition, roles, and values-targeting Chinese children aged 9-12, employing mixed-method interview, non-participant observation, and technical walkthrough. The findings reveal that children’s smartwatches bring about a “dual-edged sword” effect: while they empower children’s social connections and autonomous exploration, they also introduce disciplinary controls and risks. At the cognitive level, its location positioning, instant messaging, and gamification features mediate children’s perceptions of space, time, and social interactions. However, these features may also inhibit exploratory desires, weaken offline interaction skills, and prematurely expose children to utilitarian value trade-offs. In terms of role adaptation, children function as both “safety-dependent individuals” and “active negotiators”. In peer relationships, they act as “community participants” and “marginal coping agents”. Although role fluidity enhances adaptability, rapid switching may lead to fragmented self-identity. At the value level, children face dilemmas in balancing safety versus privacy and autonomy versus rules, with their social relationships showing quantitative tendencies. They must navigate between instrumental rationality and emotional needs, making self-value susceptible to external indicators. The study argues that smartwatches, through deep integration with traditional institutions like families and schools, create a new, data-driven wrist-worn socialization model operating round-the-clock. To guide its healthy development, it is necessary to establish a multi-party collaborative intervention framework: families should adopt flexible monitoring and digital literacy dialogues to balance safety and autonomy; schools must integrate critical media education to unveil the capital logic behind technology; policymakers ought to advance ethical legislation and mandatory device interoperability standards to safeguard children’s data sovereignty and digital equity. Only through systematic guidance can technology truly serve the holistic development of children’s socialization.