Children as labourers: Stiegler’s Pharmakon in a time of Big Tech

Our technological epoch represents a substantial shift in the conditions for making meaning. Young people encounter benefits through community-building and access to information, as well as drawbacks related to exploitation, alienation, and overload. Notably, this complexity occurs in financialized environments that are governed by sprawling multinational companies. This paper explores one aspect of how technology qua Big Tech, a function of modern capitalism, produces unique considerations for both knowing and being. After providing an overview of Big Tech and Stiegler’s pharmakon, I make the argument that the curative possibilities of technology are negated by the conditions of Big Tech. I contend that the child’s transformation into a labourer and hyper-consumer is not an accident of platform technology, but a feature built into the profit motive of these companies. I close the paper with an exploration of how Stiegler’s pharmakon as a milieu of conflictual tendencies can inform future educational possibilities.