Jennifer Valentino-DeVries

We're reading the same stuff.

We're making the same food.

It was striking to see these companies discussing ways to reach kids in the classroom, knowing that that was what they were doing, getting pushback from people within the company saying that this might be disrupting the class, and they went ahead and did it anyway.

It was surprising to me just how blatant it was sometimes.

For example, Snap had a strategy document that referred to

Phone use in schools is under the desk time.

They sent alerts to students during class time telling them that they should post about what was in their backpack.

Meta had a program where it paid teenagers to act as its ambassadors in schools and hand out swag or post about new products online.

And Google knew that kids were looking at YouTube during class and watching videos that were not related to their academics.

And they really did not invest in ways to keep that from happening for many years.