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Big Tech, Big Business, and the Lives of Children
by Susan Linn
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.
"A guide on changing course both individually and as a society, by an experienced activist; a must-read." —Library Journal (starred review)
"A stunning examination of how marketing, technology, and consumer capitalism impact the well-being of children... . This is a must-read for parents and educators." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"A must-read for any parent." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Who's Raising the Kids? is a book about a dangerous divergence—between the profit-maximizing strategies of companies that market toys, apps, and social media to children, on the one hand, and the actual needs of children, on the other. Drawing from an impressive collection of studies and stories, Linn illuminates the harms of what she aptly calls 'a corporate takeover of childhood' and shows us what we can do to protect all our kids." —Alfie Kohn, author of The Schools Our Children Deserve and Punished by Rewards
"Every child needs an advocate like Susan Linn; every parent—a wise friend like her; every politician and corporate leader—a bold challenger like her. And every reader needs this book—a passionate and supremely practical reckoning with one of the great dilemmas of the age." —James Carroll, author of The Truth at the Heart of the Lie
This information about Who's Raising the Kids? was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Susan Linn is a psychologist, award-winning ventriloquist, and a world-renowned expert on creative play and the impact of media and commercial marketing on children. She was the Founding Director of Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood (now called Fairplay) and is currently research associate at Boston Children's Hospital and lecturer on psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. The author of Consuming Kids, The Case for Make Believe, and Who's Raising the Kids? (all published by The New Press), she lives in Brookline, Massachusetts.
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