Child Psych Podcast Episode #202

About the Guest

Dr. Susan Linn is a psychologist, author, and longtime advocate for children. A lecturer at Harvard Medical School and founder of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, now known as Fairplay, she has spent decades examining how advertising, technology, and corporate interests shape children’s lives. She is the author of Who’s Raising the Kids? Big Tech, Big Business, and the Lives of Children.

Introduction to the Conversation

Who is shaping our children’s values, attention, relationships, and ideas about the world?

Parents and caregivers remain enormously important—but children are also growing up surrounded by technology and commercial messages designed to capture and hold their attention.

In this episode of The Child Psych Podcast, Tania Johnson speaks with Dr. Susan Linn about the growing influence of Big Tech on childhood, the decline of unstructured play, and what children may lose when screens begin replacing boredom, creativity, relationships, and real-world experiences.

Rather than blaming parents, Dr. Linn explores the powerful forces families are up against—and why protecting childhood requires both individual choices and broader cultural change.

What We Discuss in This Episode

Tania and Susan explore how technology has become embedded in childhood at increasingly younger ages, often marketed to parents as educational or even necessary for future success.

They discuss the attention economy, educational apps, AI toys and chatbots, technology in schools, and Susan’s advocacy challenging the marketing of Baby Einstein products.

At the heart of the conversation is a powerful argument for protecting play, creativity, connection, and real-world childhood experiences. Susan explains why unstructured play supports imagination, problem-solving, relationships, and healthy child development—and why replacing those experiences with technology deserves much closer attention.

What You’ll Learn

• How Big Tech and commercial interests compete for children’s attention
• Why “educational” technology may not offer what parents assume it does
• What children develop through boredom, imaginative play, and creativity
• How screens and AI may begin replacing important human interactions
• Practical ways families can create more tech-free time and protect real-world childhood experiences

Who This Episode Is For

This conversation is for parents, caregivers, educators, therapists, and professionals concerned about children’s screen time, mental health, anxiety, creativity, relationships, and healthy development. It offers an important reminder that childhood doesn’t need more

Want to Go Deeper?

If conversations like this leave you wanting to better understand what’s happening underneath your child’s emotions and behaviour, join us for the FREE ICP Children’s Mental Health + Parenting Summit, November 16–19, 2026.

We’re bringing together leading voices in parenting and children’s mental health for four days of practical, research-informed conversations about anxiety, big feelings, behaviour, trauma, attachment, screens, resilience, and so much more.

Registration is free—come learn with us and discover practical tools to help the children in your life thrive.