Is Tech Really Helping Parents?

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4.5 • 52.8K Ratings

🗓️ 10 August 2025

⏱️ 23 minutes

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Summary

There are an endless stream of high-tech gadgets that promise to ease parenting fears and make the experience of child rearing more enjoyable. But at what cost? Does constant monitoring through pregnancy and early childhood make anyone safer... or happier? Today on The Sunday Story, we bring you an episode from our colleagues at On The Media. It's a conversation with author Amanda Hess about her new book, "Second Life: Having A Child In The Digital Age."

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Are you that friend?
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0:18.0	Subscribe at NPR.org slash podclub. You can also find the link in the description for this episode. Subscribe at npr.org slash podclub.
0:21.1	You can also find the link in the description for this episode.
0:26.2	I'm Aisha Roscoe, and this is a Sunday story where we go deep on one big story.
0:33.0	My kids are growing up so fast, and it seems like just as fast as they're growing up,
0:38.6	technology is zooming ahead even faster.
0:42.0	As a parent, it can be really overwhelming,
0:44.9	especially when they're babies and they're really little and just seems so fragile.
0:51.3	And companies can really play on parents' fears and anxieties to get them to buy
0:57.6	gadgets and tech far beyond what's necessary. And that's one of the ideas explored in the
1:04.6	new book by author Amanda Hess, Second Life, Having a Child in the Digital Age. Today on the Sunday story on the media producer
1:13.6	Molly Rosen talks with Amanda Hess about parenting in the new age of tech. Stay with us.
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1:35.8	of customers and visit Wise.com. T's and C's apply. As AI permeates every aspect of our lives,
1:42.9	who are the people behind this huge inflection point?
1:45.9	What keeps them up at night?
1:47.4	I fear that what it means to be human may suddenly not be our own.
	...

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