Datafied Childhoods: Data Practices and Imaginaries in Children's Lives

“More than ever before, today’s children are monitored and tracked across different digital platforms as they engage in education, play, and family life. In this thoughtful, child-centered volume, renowned childhood and family researchers Mascheroni and Siibak provide a comprehensive overview of international research on datafied childhood and parenting. Read this book to gain insights into how parents and children are navigating digital technologies, and to better understand the contemporary and future costs of a surveillance culture that is reshaping our families and our collective lives.” —Lynn Schofield Clark, University of Denver; Author of The Parent App: Understanding Families in a Digital Age

“What is it like to grow up with your every action tracked, analysed and potentially monetised? Today’s children—the guinea pigs of the digital age—have no choice but to find out for themselves. But it is the wider economic and political interests of society that drive the processes of mediatization and datafication analysed in this ambitious and insightful book. Its conclusions should concern us all.” —Sonia Livingstone, London School of Economics; Author of Parenting for a Digital Future

“Just as children experience all kinds of family and social backgrounds, their engagements with digital devices and data are diverse. In adopting a non-media-centric approach, this book does a wonderful job of revealing the diversity of datafied childhoods in all their nuances and complexities. Importantly, the authors acknowledge children’s agency and the more-than-digital dimensions of their lives.” —Deborah Lupton, SHARP Professor, Centre for Social Research in Health and the Social Policy Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Sidney; Leader of the Vitalities Lab