Psychologist and Harvard lecturer Susan Linn discusses how digital culture influences kids towards consumerism and brand loyalty. She explains how games and devices can hinder learning and parent-child relationships. The episode emphasizes choosing beneficial toys and programs, combatting commercialized culture, and advocating for critical thinking to counter corporate influence on children.
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insights INSIGHT
Marketing's True Goal
Marketing to kids isn't just about selling products.
It's about instilling values and behaviors that benefit corporations, not necessarily children.
insights INSIGHT
Screens Shrink Worlds
Screen time shrinks a child's world and hinders their natural curiosity.
It trains them to rely on screens for stimulation and soothing instead of exploring the real world.
insights INSIGHT
Tech's Disruptive Influence
Big Tech disrupts parent-child relationships by replacing parental roles.
Digital assistants handle homework, stories, and tasks normally shared between adults and children.
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In this encore episode Janet's guest is psychologist, writer, researcher, and Harvard lecturer Susan Linn. For decades, Susan has been a passionate advocate for our children and a steadfast fighter against the infiltration of Big Business and Big Tech into kids' lives (and parents' pocketbooks). In an eye-opening discussion, Susan describes how digital culture is designed to indoctrinate children into consumerism and brand loyalty, and how it's geared to create dependencies on games and devices for stimulation and soothing. She explains how games and devices teach values that are often diametrically opposed to our own, how they can affect learning by shrinking our children’s world and even interfere with parent-child relationships. Ultimately, Susan and Janet focus on the positive actions we can take to lessen the impact of manipulative marketers while realistically acknowledging the role of digitized culture in all of our lives.
More to learn in this episode:
How to choose the most beneficial toys and programs for our kids
How advertisers capture children's attention and encourage them to nag us for more, more, more
Why combatting commercialized culture isn't only a family issue, but a societal one
What Alexa offers to "bored" children
Computer games are less "active" for kids than we might believe
For more on Susan, her work, and her books, visit: www.https://www.consumingkids.com/
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