From a world-renowned expert on creative play and the impact of
commercial marketing on children, a timely investigation into how big
tech is hijacking childhood--and what we can do about it
Even before COVID-19, digital technologies had become deeply embedded in
children's lives, despite a growing body of research detailing the harms
of excessive immersion in the unregulated, powerfully seductive world of
the "kid-tech" industry.
In the "must read" (Library Journal, starred review) Who's Raising
the Kids?, Susan Linn--one of the world's leading experts on the impact
of Big Tech and big business on children--weaves an "eye-opening and
disturbing exploration of how marketing tech to children is creating a
passive, dysfunctional generation" (Kirkus Reviews, starred review).
From birth, kids have become lucrative fodder for tech, media, and toy
companies, from producers of exploitative games and social media
platforms to "educational" technology and branded school curricula of
dubious efficacy.
Written with humor and compassion, Who's Raising the Kids? is a unique
and highly readable social critique and guide to protecting kids from
exploitation by the tech, toy, and entertainment industries. Two hopeful
chapters--"Resistance Parenting" and "Making a Difference for
Everybody's Kids"--chart a path to allowing kids to be the children they
need to be.
