The Longest Shortest Time

EPISODE #262: How the Algorithm Exploits New Parents

When Chabeli Carrazana first became a mom, she struggled to get her son to sleep. She thought she didn’t have the right swaddle. So she ordered swaddle after swaddle, trying to find the one that would work for her baby. Amazon boxes were coming to their house practically every day.

When she returned to her job as a reporter at The 19th, Chabeli talked to other moms and realized she was not alone in her attempt to solve her child’s sleep issues with products. She interviewed dozens of moms, and over and over again she heard a version of the same story: they’d be up late at night, scrolling, desperate to get their kid to stop crying… and the algorithm would feed them the answer. The perfect mattress! A sleep course! A nearly $2000 bassinet! And they would click “Add to Cart.”

Later, these parents often felt bamboozled into buying products they didn’t need or fed upon their anxiety.

Tune in to hear how brands and influencers exploit new parents’ desire to do right by their kids.

Recommendations from the archive
• My very first episode is about struggling to get a newborn to sleep! Your Singing Really Interferes With My Going-To-Sleep Process
• Another early one: My Newborn, the A**hole 😂

Episode resources
• Chabeli’s article: You’ll do anything for your baby. The algorithm knows how to exploit that.
• Subscribe to Chabeli’s newsletter about mom guilt and consumerism

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Top image credit: Jordan Brooke