Despite a wide-held belief that children from low-income families are deprived of access to technology, they actually spend more time with screens than wealthier children do. This screen time takes away valuable time from activities proven to be educational—negatively impacting vocabulary and reading skills, the ability to separate fact from hype, to think deeply, to be creative, to display empathy, and to demonstrate self-reflection.

A comparison between the Baby Einstein Company with the Bush administration: both employ false and deceptive marketing to promote their brands; both exploit fear as a tool for marketing, and both rely on building a passive and accepting media audience.

The more opportunities that children have to engage in creative play, the better they will become at mastering the academic and non-academic situations they later encounter. The time that children spend watching screens deprives them of time they could spend playing creatively and learning meaningfully. The article explores how we can help children construct knowledge today by encouraging creative play, limiting involvement with electronic media, and helping children find meaningful problems to solve.

Childhood obesity rates are linked to food advertising. Because of the pervasive extent of child-centered food marketing, there is a need for more stringent government regulations. This article explores the depth of child-centered food marketing and offers grassroots strategies for instituting change.