Digital Child Annual Report 2024

ANNUAL REPORT 2024

Supporting children growing up in a digital world

Acknowledgement

The Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child acknowledges the First Australian owners of the lands on which we gather and pay our respects to the Elders, lores, customs, and create spirits of this country.

The Centre recognises the examples we set in diversity and inclusion will support young children to respect and celebrate differences in all people. We embed diversity, inclusivity, and equality into all aspects of the Centre’s activities and welcome all people regardless of race, ethnicity, social background, religion, gender, age, disability, sexual orientation, and national origin.

Director’s Message

The last twelve months saw our Centre members achieve milestones that underscore our commitment to fostering meaningful change of young children navigating the digital world.

Whole-of-Centre Activity Highlights

Inaugural Digital Childhoods Summit: In June 2024, Canberra played host to the first-ever Digital Childhoods Summit, a pivotal event focused on children’s wellbeing and safety in the digital age. The summit brought together 70 influential stakeholders, including government officials, regulators, industry leaders, and community advocates, all united in their dedication to supporting children’s digital lives.

Digital Child Annual Meeting (DCAM) 2024: Over 130 Centre members from across Australia came together in Melbourne for DCAM 2024. The Meeting began with several events, including engaging sessions for ECRs and HDR students, an Advisory Committee meeting and a Telstra Foundation Roundtable featuring renowned scholar and Centre Partner Investigator Professor Sonia Livingstone (UK). The week’s highlights included a public event with thought leaders Sonia Livingstone, John Davis, and Julian Sefton-Green, and international contributions from Centre Investigators Professor Rebekah Willett (USA) and Professor Hyeon-Seon Jeong (South Korea).

Collaboration at the ARC Directors’ Forum: The Digital Child hosted the ARC Directors’ Forum on July 23rd, welcoming Directors and Chief Operating Officers from across the country. This event was followed by the Professional Staff Day on July 24th and the Community of Practice Day on July 25th,

which included a finance networking event to showcase the importance of collaboration and knowledge-sharing within the Centre.

Influencing Policy on Social Media Use: Our Centre researchers provided expert commentary during the Australian Government’s deliberation on a proposed social media ban for children and young people. We will continue dialogue with policymakers into the future regarding solutions that align with the needs and voices of young Australians.

Mid-Term Review Success: In November 2024, the Australian Research Council conducted a comprehensive mid-term review of the Digital Child Centre. This rigorous evaluation involved a detailed written submission and interviews with 30 representatives, including Chief Investigators, research fellows, students, partners, and advisory committee members. The review highlighted the Centre’s progress and ongoing commitment to impactful research.

Celebrating Research Achievements

Our Centre researchers produced a range of influential publications during 2024. You can read a more extensive account of our research outcomes within the research section of this report.

Two Major Book Launches: We celebrated the launch of Children, Media, and Pandemic Parenting: Family Life in Uncertain Times (edited by Rebekah Willett and Xinyu (Andy) Zhao) and Digital Media Use in Early Childhood: Birth to Six (authored by Lelia Green, Leslie Haddon, Sonia Livingstone, Brian O’Neill, Kylie Stevenson, and Donell Holloway).

Children’s Picture Books on Digital Balance: Four winning children’s picture books were unveiled, creatively addressing the challenge of balancing digital media use. These engaging stories serve as valuable resources for young readers, families, and educators worldwide. The next series of this competition is now underway, with entries due by February 28, 2025.

Launch of the Digital Child Ethics Toolkit: Designed for researchers, the toolkit explores ethical considerations in studying digital childhoods. It addresses diverse contexts (e.g., home, health, early learning), methods (e.g., ethnography, wearable devices), and cohorts (e.g., infants, children with disabilities).

The Benefits of Gaming for Kids: A Digital Child study featured in a UNICEF report highlights how gaming can enhance children’s wellbeing by fostering feelings of competence, empowerment, and social connection.

Beyond Screen Time: New research challenges oversimplified views on screen time, revealing how factors like parental mental health and screen type impact child development.

Practical Insights for Parents and Carers: Our researchers analysed 100 studies on young children’s screen use and shared four actionable takeaways to help families navigate digital media effectively.

Partnering for Impact

Inaugural Partner Network Meeting: On March 7th, we convened the first-ever Partner Network Group meeting, chaired by Dr. Sandra Cheeseman, CEO of C&K. Representatives from esteemed organizations such as the eSafety Commissioner, Goodstart, Storypark, Life Without Barriers, G8, ACMI, Playgroup WA, AARE, The Smith Family, and UNICEF Australia participated. This vibrant collaboration continues with biannual meetings, with the next gathering scheduled for early 2025.

A Special Breakfast Event in Canberra: March 28th marked the announcement of our exciting new partnership with UNICEF Australia during a breakfast event held at the Play Up Children’s Engagement Space in Old Parliament House. The occasion was attended by many of our stakeholders, including Minister for Communications Michelle Rowland and

Assistant Secretary Andrew Irwin, alongside representatives from the Telstra Foundation, Day of AI, the Alannah & Madeleine Foundation, and the Australian Research Council.

Exploring Digital Wellbeing: On March 12th, Daniel Johnson, Aleesha Rodriguez, and I were featured speakers at Technology and Wellbeing: The Digital Lives of Children, an online roundtable hosted by Jackie Coates (Telstra Foundation) and Jackie Hallan (Reach Out). Together, we delved into the evolving intersection of technology and child wellbeing.

Groundbreaking Insights on Gaming and Wellbeing: Daniel Johnson contributed to a comprehensive eSafety report exploring the risks and benefits of online gaming for young people. This report analysed the experiences of 1,799 Australian children aged 8 to 17, providing invaluable insights from a mixed-methods study conducted in 2023.

Shifting Perspectives on Screen Time: In October 2024, the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) hosted the fifth seminar in the Digital Child x ACMI series. The event, titled Screen Time Anxieties: Changing the Conversation Around Kids and Tech, brought together experts to discuss how ‘screen time’ guidelines align with the realities of modern family life, offering fresh perspectives on a complex topic.

Congratulations to all our Centre members who contribute to the achievements of the Centre in 2024. As we reflect on this successful year in the Centre, I want to take a moment to consider the incredible progress we’ve made together. The Centre’s activities have truly set the stage for an inspiring 2025. Going forward, we can continue to push the boundaries to make meaningful impacts for supporting children living in a digital age.

DISTINGUISHED PROFESSOR

SUSAN DANBY FASSA

Director, Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child

About the Digital Child

Children are growing, learning, and connecting with digital technology. The rapid pace of growth and change in this space means that there is an urgent and compelling need to create positive digital childhoods for all Australian children: this is the mission of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child.

Digital Child members pose for a group photo at the Digital Child Annual Meeting 2024 in Melbourne

LEGEND

Conference

Policy

Collaboration

Community

Professional Learning

DOMESTIC TRAVELS

Member success in 2024

AI Marnee Shay was appointed a member of the ARC’s newly established Indigenous Forum

CI Lisa Kervin received the Medal of the Order of Australia in 2024

CI Simon Smith was appointed to the ARC Medical Research Advisory Group in 2024.

CI Michael Dezuanni was made a Fellow in the Queensland Academy of Arts and Sciences

AI Emma Cross received the ACEL National Award – “New Voice in Early Childhood Educational Leadership

AI Maddie Dobson received the Teaching Excellence Award from Curtin University Guild

HDR candidate Sinead Wilson received the Best Humanities Presentation at the Curtin University ECR Event

CI Leon Straker received the Faculty of Health Sciences Lifetime Achievement Research Award 2024

AI Crystal Abidin became a founding member of the ‘Child Influencer Policy’ Working Group, headed by Australia Influencer Marketing Council

AI Crystal Abidin’s position on the TikTok Safety Advisory Council (APAC) was renewed

CI Julian Sefton-Green was awarded the Deakin University Julie Rowlands Excellence in Research Leadership and Mentoring Award

RF Nicole Hayes was invited to become an expert reviewer for Health Research Council of New Zealand Research Fellowships

HDR Irina Silva was selected to be the QUT nominee, AARE Ray Debus Award - an award that recognises excellence in educational research by doctoral students.

RF Cassandra Pattinson was a recipient of ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award 2025 funding for her project to improve understanding on the impact of artificial and environmental light on children’s sleep, cognitive function and wellbeing.

AI Jasneek Chalwa was nominated for Queensland Children’s Hospital 2024 Excellence Awards for Excellence in Research

CI Smith Appointed to the MRFF Grant Assessment Committee for 2024

CI Kervin received an ARC Future Fellowship

HDR Anna Loeffler received a UQ 2024 Dean’s Award for Outstanding Higher Degree by Research Theses

RF Aleesha Rodriguez was the Winner of Contribution to Public Policy and Debate at the 2024 QUT CIESJ Faculty Awards Program

CI Luci Pangrazio’s co-authored book, Critical Data Literacies: Rethinking Data and Everyday Life’ was awarded a ‘2024 Choice Outstanding Academic Title’

Centre milestones in 2024

ACODA longitudinal study: Year 1 of data collection completed. Data collection for the next year has begun.

Mid-term review by the Australian Research Council in November 2024

Delivery of Future Leaders program for ECR and HDR members

Inaugural Digital Childhoods Summit held in Canberra during June 2024

Creation of public-facing resources, including infographics for parents and carers and modules for early years educators

Congratulations to Digital Child members on their many achievements in 2024!

Mid term review

Our mid-term review was conducted by the Australian Research Council in November 2024. The review evaluated the progress of the Digital Child through a written submission and interviews with 30 Centre representatives, including Chief Investigators, research fellows, students, partners, professional staff, and advisory committee members.

The program began with a tour of our Children’s Technology Centre before the series of eight interviews began. Discussions during the day were robust and covered a range of areas, including the Centre’s contributions to our research disciplines, impact on policy, collaborations with partners, and professional development for EMCR and HDR members.

The results of our mid-term review were finalised in late 2024 with the panel indicating the Centre is exceeding expectations (or performing at an outstanding level) in five areas. Our thanks to the panel and our Centre members who participated in the review with a special mention to everyone who travelled to be in Brisbane!

2025 Activity Plan

Research

• Complete year 2 of ACODA longitudinal data collection and analysis; commence year 3 data collection. Commence nested studies with ACODA families

• Hold at least two in-person Chief Investigator meetings; one additional virtual meeting

• Add time for research collaboration with a focus on authoring academic outputs within the Centre calendar

• Update the Centre strategic plan and risk management framework

• Enact changes based on recommendations made in Mid-Term Review

• Convene at least two Advisory Committee meetings

Governance

Mentorship and Capacity Building

• Update training needs analysis to guide capacity building programs

• Deliver training for HDR student and ECR members

• Review and deliver next edition of Future Leaders program for HDR and ECR members

Partnerships and Collaborations

• Deliver at least one event with a strategic Centre partner

• Launch inaugural Partner Network Group Symposium

• Build domestic and international collaborations with research and wider stakeholders

• Hold in-person Digital Child Annual Meeting in Wollongong, NSW

• Review and deliver Digital Child Spotlight virtual meeting series

• Conduct annual Centre equity, diversity, and inclusion survey

Centre Culture and Connection

Communications and Engagement

• Build Centre library of public-facing resources for core audiences; children, parents and carers, educators, and policymakers

• Hold second Digital Childhoods Summit to continue building connections amongst policy, NGOs, and other stakeholders

• Support Centre researchers to communicate about their research and engaging with stakeholders

Governance

The Digital Child’s governance structure includes committees that provide expert advice and oversight on Centre work.

Advisory Committee Executive Committee

The Advisory Committee is responsible for adding value and critical input to guide the Centre in delivering its mission. The committee met with the Centre Director and Centre Directorate two times in 2024. Committee members were also involved in the Centre’s MidTerm Review.

Chair

Taryn Marks

Members

Emeritus Professor Paul Chandler

Professor Barbara Comber AM Megan Mitchell AM

Centre Director

Distinguished Professor Susan Danby

Centre Directorate

Deputy Director Senior Professor Sue Bennett

Chief Operations Officer Lisa Walker

The Executive Committee oversees the Centre’s strategic direction and performance against the objectives of the ARC Centre of Excellence scheme and agreed performance targets.

The Committee ensures that the Centre’s resources are allocated effectively to achieve Centre aims. In addition, the Executive Committee acts as the formal authorising committee for the Centre budget, strategic plan, research projects, project and partnership agreements, and applications for Associate Investigator (AI) status.

Chair

Centre Director Susan Danby

Other members include the Centre Deputy Director, Chief Operating Officer, and Node Representatives.

Research Committee Data Management Committee

The Research Committee manages and reviews the progress of the Centre’s research.

The Committee drives initiatives to ensure that the Centre’s research is transdisciplinary and cross-nodal, strongly aligned with the Centre’s research programs, responsive to the needs of partners, and provides opportunities for codesign of new projects with partners.

Chair

Professor Michael Dezuanni

Other members of the committee include the Co-leads for the Healthy, Connected, and Educated research programs, the Australian Child of the Digital Age (ACODA) Longitudinal Study Co-Leader representative, Indigenous Advisor, and a member of the Centre Directorate.

The Data Management Committee oversees the development and implementation of the Centre’s data management plan.

Chair

Professor Andrew Rohl

Other members – Co-leads for the Healthy, Connected, and Educated research programs, the Australian Child of the Digital Age (ACODA) Longitudinal Study Co-Leader representative, and representatives from the Centre Directorate.

In 2024, the Committee voted to disestablish the Data Management Committee as a result of changes to ethics processes at member universities.

Research

Our research focuses on healthy digital lives, educational empowerment, and safe digital spaces for young children.

Digital Child Outputs

The Digital Child’s research is making an impact internationally with 20% of publications in the top 10% most cited publications worldwide.

Examples of significant projects at the Digital Child from 2024 include the UNICEF Innocenti

Baby Apps – Mapping the Issues

The use of mobile applications to track, monitor and manage ever-more intimate and personal aspects of everyday life – from our steps, heart rate and mental states, to becoming a parent – has become a mundane practice.

This paper details four key issues that are central to a better understanding of the social and cultural roles and impacts of baby apps. These issues include the datafication of childhoods and family life; the role of baby apps as disciplining tools for institutional-level risk management and self-governance; the social and individual impacts of the gendered design and use of baby apps; and the necessity to investigate how baby apps can play an increasing role in empowering parents and families.

and the LEGO Foundation’s wellbeing and digital gaming report, and a meta-analysis of 100 studies on young children’s screen use in JAMA Pediatrics, the highest ranking pediatrics journal in the world.

Analysing Australian news media reporting about the role of digital technologies in children’s lives

Children’s relationship with media technologies has long been an area of significant news interest. News coverage in this area is often perceived as focusing on negative elements, perhaps even constituting a ‘media panic’ (Buckingham & Strandgaard Jensen, 2012). The ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child is and always has been, sensitive to the perceived or assumed orientation of media to the value and impact of digital media during childhood.

This working paper asks: what is the tone and subject of Australian media coverage of issues relating to children and digital technologies?

Read the full paper Read the full paper

Privacy Policy Evaluation Framework

Developed from a children’s rights perspective and influenced by a data justice approach, the Privacy Policy Evaluation Framework aims to help researchers develop a systematic and comprehensive way to analyse and compare privacy policies.

Privacy policies are important documents that disclose how organisations or companies collect and handle customers’ personal information. However, understanding the meanings and legal implications of the statements in these documents can be a daunting task, including for researchers. The Privacy Policy Evaluation Framework (PPEF) contains four domains: readability; visual analysis and accessibility; technical evaluation; and textual, legal and evaluative analysis.

This paper is part of a series consisting of digital research capacity building resource-rich discussion papers, offering more technical support for the research community and allied scholarship. This series is more focused on methods and methodologies

Digital Child Ethics Toolkit: Ethical Considerations for Digital Childhoods Research

There is a growing body of scholarship that examines how very young children and their families relate to, adopt, and engage with digital technologies. This research typically involves a range of ethical considerations. Yet, as an emerging field, it can be difficult for researchers and ethics committees to find standards of practice or evaluate risks and benefits.

To support researchers working in this area, this toolkit outlines ethical considerations across three main dimensions of research: contexts (such as researching in the home, health settings, or early learning centres); methods (such as ethnographic approaches, web-scraping, or using wearable devices); and cohorts (such as infants and toddlers, children with disabilities, or educators).

The first half of the toolkit is a discussion paper that addresses each of these contexts in turn, as well as discussing some foundational principles and issues, such as informed consent and positioning children as co-researchers. The second half is an appendix containing references and resources for each of the contexts, methods, and cohorts that have been addressed.

Digital Childhoods in Australia - A landscape report

With international and domestic discussions on banning children and young people from social media, this report is a timely contribution that aims to inform stakeholders working with and for children in Australia.

This report has been prepared to share with attendees of the Digital Childhoods Summit and organisations concerned with the wellbeing, education, social participation, and safety of children using digital technologies. It highlights key issues and recommendations made by attendees during roundtables at the Summit, which were recorded by scribes using Chatham House rules.

The Summit focused on the themes of safety, inclusion, health & wellbeing, and futures during two days in Canberra. Reflections from each component are incorporated in this report.

Principles for a Better Children’s Internet

The principles outlined in this document provide clear guidance on how to create a better Children’s Internet. The Internet has enhanced children’s lives in many ways and we recognise that it will continue to play an important role as they move through childhood, into their teen years and adulthood.

Online experiences are not always well designed, well regulated, or good for children. They are sometimes exploitative, risky, and problematic; the Internet was not created with children’s interests and needs in mind.

The Children’s Internet is an idea that can be used by industry, government, educators, parents and carers, and various stakeholders to reflect on how digital products, services, and content are thought about, made available, designed, sold, regulated, managed, used, and invite children to participate online.

Strategic Research Funding

The research committee opened a new round of the Digital Child’s Innovative and Strategic Funding scheme in 2024. The purpose of this scheme is to allow the Centre to respond to emerging issues and new conceptualizations. This funding supports new strategic projects that move beyond the core research agenda but remain aligned with the Centre’s goals and remit.

The successful projects in 2024 were:

Game Changers: Researching the Influence of Persuasive Design Features on Children’s App-Based Digital Play

Team: Steven Howard, Sumudu Mallawaarachchi, Daniel Johnson, Sonia White, Cody Phillips

This project proposes a first-of-its-kind app-based game built with the ability to turn on/off persuasive design features (i.e., rewards, pop-ups, auto-play, safe artificial ads, opportunity to invest time/attention to enhance play), individually and in combination, while logging all user actions.

Creating Child-Led Games on Wellbeing Through Game Jams

Team: Daniel Johnson, Madison Klarkowski, janelle MacKenzie, Louise Paatsch, Lisa Kervin

The project will explore gamejams as a unique opportunity to empower children in early childhood through centering them as co-designers, and establishing them as the authors of their own positive digital futures. By harnessing the intensive, fun-first, and industry-oriented format of

gamejams, the research team will generate rich opportunities for collaboration and mentorship between young children.

Technology, Light, and Children (TLC) project

Team: Professor Simon Smith, Dr Cassandra Pattinson, Dr George Thomas, Dr Dwayne Mann, Dr Shannon Edmed, Associate Professor Dylan Cliff, Emily Westwood, Associate Professor Jasneek Chawla, Dr Nicole Hayes, Associate, Professor Marnee Shay, Dr Janelle Mackenzie, Louis De Waal

This project directly addresses the aim to understand the impacts of digital technology on children’s sleep. Disruption of sleep has significant implications for physical health, mood, and wellbeing, in addition to impacts on new learning, memory, and social function in children. Recent concerns about the impact of social media on the wellbeing of children and young people have pointed to sleep as the most likely mechanism linking these factors.

Children’s engagement with Artificial Intelligence: A Digital Child Parliament

Team: Susan Danby, Tama Leaver, Louise Paatsch, Anna Bunn, Chris Chalmers, Maryanne Theobald, Irina Silva, Kristy Corser, Suzanne Sradov

The rapid development and use of AI influences children’s everyday lives, highlighting the imperative to explore and understand children’s engagement with AI. This project uses child rightsbased, participatory co-design approaches with children (6-10 years) to investigate understandings of, and build knowledge, about Artificial Intelligence (AI) through a Children’s Parliament Investigator model.

Are video games good for young kids? Study finds ‘wellbeing’ benefits

Playing video games can help boost children’s wellbeing in ways including making them feel competent, empowered and socially connected to others, according to a Digital Child study featured in a new UNICEF report on the impact of gaming.

The study was unusual because of its use of tracking equipment – such as heart rate sensors and eye tracking software – to monitor the children’s real-time responses to the video games. The researchers believe their approach is something that game designers might also be able to use to help them assess the impact of their games on child wellbeing.

Professor Johnson said the QUT study involved 68 Brisbane children aged between seven and 13. It was funded by UNICEF and the LEGO Foundation.

Researchers collected a variety of data including heart rate, galvanic skin response, facial expressions, and eye tracking, and recorded what the children said. This data, in turn, was analysed and matched to human emotions linked to wellbeing.

Beyond screen time: complex factors shaping child development

New research challenges views on screen time, revealing factors such as parental mental health and the type of screen being used may have some impact on child development.

Led by Dr Amber Beynon and Dr Juliana Zabatiero from the Curtin School of Allied Health, the research looked at how children’s and parents’ use of various types of screens impacted infant development at 12 months of age and also considered factors such as parental mental health and socioeconomic status.

Participants were from the longitudinal ORIGINS study, a collaboration between The Kids Research Institute Australia and Joondalup Health Campus which is following the health of 10,000 families to reduce chronic health conditions.

Infants using mobile touch devices such as smartphones and tablets for just five minutes per day were weakly associated with lower developmental scores, however Dr Beynon said mental health, particularly of both parents, was a stronger factor influencing outcomes.

“We’re increasingly finding ‘screen time’ doesn’t tell us the full story; we need to focus more on the context and the content of the screen use,” Dr Beynon said.

Indigenous research and engagement

Creating a brighter future for all students

by Elissa Lawrence

Professor Grace Sarra has spent more than 30 years making a difference in Indigenous and low socio-economic education.

Professor Sarra has extensive experience working within schools and across all sectors in education in Indigenous and low socioeconomic communities and railing against low expectations and stereotypes of what these students can achieve.

She has worked to improve educational outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students and low SES students, as well as research spanning early childhood, inclusive education, and incarcerated youth in detention centres. Her work has been widely supported and funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC), Aboriginal Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS), industry and government.

Professor Sarra is currently a researcher at QUT, working with projects including the $35 million QUT-led ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child, a world-first centre dedicated to creating positive digital childhoods for

Australian children aged from birth to eight years.

The centre is running a major longitudinal study called Australian Children of the Digital Age (ACODA), tracking 3000 families over four years in how young children engage with digital technology which she currently co- leads with Professor Daniel Johnson (QUT) and Dr Juliana Zabatiero (Curtin University).

She is also a researcher in a threeyear, multi-university ARC Indigenous discovery research grant with Associate Professor Marnee Shay (UQ) co-designing Indigenous education policy in Queensland that engages indigenous families and communities in the design process “from the beginning to the end’’.

In 2014, Professor Sarra received an ARC Indigenous Discovery Grant with QUT colleague Adjunct Associate Professor Bronwyn Ewing to assess mathematical learning potential of incarcerated Indigenous and low socio-economic young people at the Brisbane Youth Education and Training Centre.

This year, Professor Sarra was part of a research team with Associate Professor Marnee Shay (UQ), Fred Cobbo (UQ) and Professor Margaret Kettle (CQU) and was awarded an Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) grant.

The project created local Indigenous curriculum resources to support Aboriginal language revitalisation, called the Binung Ma Na Du Cultural Stories and Living Histories on Wakka Wakka Country.

A passion for making a difference is also shared by Professor Sarra’s family.

“My family are all oriented towards making a difference for our mob in the work that we do,’’ Professor Sarra said.

“It’s about making an impact where we can.’’

More Indigenous children are going to preschool, but is this enough?

Written by Grace Sarra and Marnee Shay

The latest Closing the Gap data contains some good news – there is a marked increase in early childhood enrolments for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. The report shows how in the year before full-time schooling, there has been a 25% increase in enrolments over the past seven years.

In 2016, 76.7% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students were enrolled in a preschool program. In 2023, it was 101.8% (this figure is more than 100% due to different sources of data and will be updated once we have 2021 Census population figures).

This shows we are both improving on track to meet the target of 95% of students enrolled in early education before they start school by 2025.

Does enrollment equal outcomes?

But it isn’t all positive news, the report also notes only 34.3% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children were “developmentally on track” when they started school as of 2021.

This was a decrease from 35.2% in 2018. The target of 55% is also not on track to be met.

We know it is important for children to receive quality early education before they begin school, it has benefits both for their wellbeing

An example of a numeracy resource developed as part of the authors’ research. Grace Sarra and Marnee Shay, Author provided (no reuse).

Research on Indigenous children has shown it can help build their literacy in both the short and long-term and numeracy skills in the long-term.

A systematic review published in 2020 investigated whether early childhood education programs support positive education and developmental outcomes for Indigenous students. It showed preschool education has the potential to provide long-term benefits and prepare Indigenous students for school.

However, the authors also noted it matters what kind of education they are getting. The preschool programs need to be high quality –exactly what this entails, and how we evaluate it, is still being determined.

For Indigenous children, research suggests affirming their cultural identities as well as having strong engagement and connection with their families and communities is vital.

‘It’s about making our children feel proud’: how schools can learn about local Indigenous language and culture

By Marnee Shay, Fred Cobbo, Grace Sarra, and Margaret Kettle

One of the priorities of the Closing the Gap reporting is that Indigenous cultures and languages are “strong, supported and flourishing”. It also calls for Indigenous students to “achieve their full learning potential”. and for their learning.

These two priorities are listed in totally different sections of the report but they are very much connected.

Schools can play a big role in Indigenous language revitalisation and creating a strong sense of identity and belonging for students, supporting their wellbeing and learning.

Our new research shows how this can be done through co-designing curriculum resources with local communities that privilege local knowledge, strengths, stories and languages.

A repository of language and culture

In 2020 we began to work with the Elders advisory group connected to a local high school on Wakka Wakka Country, which covers a vast area in Queensland’s Burnett region. But the communities involved in this project were Cherbourg and Murgon.

This was a co-designed process from the very beginning. This meant we spoke to Elders and the community to identify what they wanted and then worked with them throughout the process.

Talking to Elders, community and school staff, we learned there was a strong desire to have tangible resources about local history and culture that elevated their voices. These could be used by local childcare services and schools, as well as the broader community.

Indigenous authors Anita Heiss and Uncle Boori Monty Pryor delivered a series of workshops with school students and local community members to share their experiences and inspire people to share their stories. We also had local Indigenous researchers working closely with community to support anyone who wanted to contribute a story.

The project culminated in a series of strengthsbased stories (emphasising strengths and aspirations) being hosted on the Cherbourg Shire Council website to give the community control of the Binung Ma Na Du (ear, eye, hand and heart) project.

All storytellers own the intellectual property of their stories

New book published by Centre Associate Investigator

Strength Basing, Empowering and Regenerating Indigenous Knowledge Education: Riteway Flows

by John Davis

Strength Basing, Empowering and Regenerating Indigenous Knowledge Education demonstrates how to bring Indigenous Knowledges to the forefront of education practice and provides educators with the tools to enact culturally responsive curricula and pedagogies, ensuring positive educational outcomes for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children and students.

In this book, John Davis presents Indigenous Knowledges – ways of doing, creating, and learning – combined with contemporary education practice, to develop a culturally responsive pedagogy that builds on the strengths that Indigenous Australian students bring to the classroom. Setting Cultural Proficiency as the benchmark, the book offers educators a lens through which to review their education practice. It moves beyond the deficit model of Indigenous education by challenging non-Indigenous educators to reflect on personal biases and to raise their expectations of Indigenous students. Not ‘tacked on’ to an existing curriculum, or specific to a single school term or unit of learning, Riteway places Indigenous Knowledges at the centre of education. The approach is holistic and adaptable to any educational context, from the early years right through to tertiary education.

In October, members of the Deakin node were privileged to attend an Indigenous immersion event in the Bunya mountains, ‘Gunyain the Bunyas with Cherbourg at the heart’, hosted by Traditional Owners John Davis and Aunty Faith Green. Kate Mannell, LorettaWatson, Andy Zhao and Katrin Langton spent 3 days in Bunya Burra with other Gunya Meta partners and collaborators, and had the amazing opportunity to strengthen kinnections by listening to cultural knowledge and participating in traditional ways of being, knowing and doing. A very big thank you to JD for this very special experience.

longtitudinal study

Highlights and Achievements

The Digital Child launched ACODA - our longitudinal study of young children’s engagement with digital technologies - in October 2023. We successfully engaged over 3,300 families during the Wave 1 fieldwork, which concluded in April 2024.

Collaboration with the Digital Child and ACODA partners played a crucial role in this success, as they actively promoted the survey within their extensive networks of parents and carers. Additionally, the Digital Child community provided valuable support by sharing the study with their contacts, colleagues, families, and friends.

ACODA Wave 2 was launched in October 2024, with two tranches of fieldwork. The first tranche, for participants who completed the survey between October and December 2023, closed on 8 December 2024. As part of the Wave 2 launch, an invitation letter was sent to ACODA families, inviting them to continue participating in the study. The letter included an infographic highlighting key insights from the Wave 1 data,

such as demographics and digital device usage. The second tranche of Wave 2, for participants who completed the survey between January and April 2024, will commence in February 2025.

The ACODA team welcomed Dr Janelle Mackenzie as the Research Fellow in early November. Dr Mackenzie will be responsible for managing and analysing the data.

The first round of ACODA nested studies opened in November, with 13 applications received from Digital Child members. Members were invited to submit applications to access de-identified data, or apply to recruit a subset of the existing ACODA cohort for further related study. Applications will be reviewed early in 2025 for research to commence in the second quarter.

In 2025, the ACODA leadership team will begin work on the ACODA Cohort Profile Paper, presenting an overview of the methodology used to conduct ACODA Wave 1, describing the demographics of the cohort and descriptions of digital technology use and related variables within the cohort. Through this project, the team also plans to provide an overview of each of the ACODA waves as they are completed.

Prof. Daniel Johnson

Prof. Grace Sarra Dr. Juliana Zabatiero

2024 Timeline

Several key achievements were made by the ACODA study in 2024.

APRIL

Wave 1 fieldwork closed on 30 April, with 3,388 families participating

JUNE

Welcome letters and ACODA branded fridge magnets mailed to participating families.

SEPTEMBER

Ethics approval granted for Wave 2 of the study.

OCTOBER

Wave 2 (Tranche 1) of the study launched. Invitation letter and infographic mailed to families, inviting them to join the second Wave of the study.

NOVEMBER

ACODA Research Fellow Dr Janelle Mackenzie appointed to manage and analyse the longitudinal data. Nested study applications open for Digital Child members.

DECEMBER

Wave 2 (Tranche 1) survey closed, 87% completion rate. Tranche 2 to be launched in February 2025.

ACODA Child’s Technology Use

What did our ACODA families tell us in the first wave of data collection?

What technologies are present at home? Total Respondents = 3,388

Internet access present in the house

Where do they use technology?

Children use devices most frequently in the lounge room

of children that used a tablet used it in the lounge room (note. 1607 children used a tablet)

Who do children use devices with?

A very large proportion of the children used devices with a parent/carer. For example: used the television with a parent/carer

Notable proportion used devices on their own. For example:

of children that used a television used it in the lounge room (note. 3011 children used a television)

97.3% 74.6%

of children that used a mobile phone used it in the lounge room (note. 1410 children used a mobile phone)

We’ll release more data from ACODA in the coming year. Stay tuned!

Educated Child

Our Educated research program is focused on educational empowerment – equipping children with the skills they need to live their best digital lives.

New modules for early educator professional earning

Experts in early childhood education, alongside researchers from the University of Wollongong (UOW), took part in a World Café at Early Start tomorrow on November 15.

The event, hosted by UOW researchers from the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child, discussed what constitutes quality in adult-child-technology interactions in the preschool classroom and then how to integrate digital technology in children’s learning activities and experiences, in a research-driven, best-practice way.

The event also launched the DigIQ Professional Learning materials, a free suite of evidencebased professional learning resources that will be available to early childhood educators across Australia and housed on the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child website.

Professor Lisa Kervin, Chief Investigator and Educated Co-Lead in the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child and Director of Early Start Research at UOW, said children are now immersed in the world of technology from a very early age.

“Digital technologies are a reality in many young children’s lives, yet many adults –including educators – are unsure about the best practices for supporting children’s learning during digital experiences. It is essential that we draw upon the expertise educators have about quality practice and consider ways that digital technologies may support and transform learning and play opportunities,” Professor Kervin said.

Prof. Karen Murcia

Prof. Louise Paatsch

Prof. Lisa Kervin

Helping the early childhood sector to navigate the world of digital technology

New Digital Child book launched!

A well-attended event chaired by Baroness Beeban Kidron launched a new book on Digital Media in Early Childhood: Birth to Six in 2024.

Digital Child Chief Investigator Professor Lelia Green delivered an introduction to the research reported in the book before an expert panel discussed the issues arising for digital media use in early childhood, including a Q&A with a very engaged and expert audience. The panel included authors Sonia Livingstone and Brian O’Neill as well as Digital Child Director Distinguished Professor Susan Danby.

The book draws on a three-year research project examining the realities of under six-year-olds’ experiences of digital technologies in the UK and Australia.

CI Green speaks at the book launch of Digital Media Use in Early Childhood

Exploring Children’s Digital Rights: Insights from the ‘Datafied by Default’ Symposium at AARE

Written by Dr Karley Beckman

The recent symposium “Datafied by Default” at the AARE conference in Sydney in December brought together 13 Centre members across three nodes and two international visiting fellows to examine the pervasive datafication of children through educational technologies (EdTech). This multidisciplinary gathering builds upon the work of a recent Special Issue by the same title published in Computers and Education Open guest edited by Tiffani Apps, Rebecca Ng and myself. Most importantly, the special issue and symposium highlighted the need to disrupt or bring into question our uncontested relationships with data within schools.

The symposium opened with a presentation by international visiting fellows Marie Utterberg Modén and Svea Kiesewetter from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Marie shared a compelling narrative of Swedish children’s daily interactions with digital technologies, illustrating how their access to education

inherently involves datafication. Expanding from this local lens to a global perspective, she introduced the InfraReveal platform. This tool visualises data generation and movement in EdTech, enabling collective learning about data flows, privacy concerns, and environmental consequences. Collaborating with colleagues Thomas Hillman and Svea Kiesewetter, Marie has worked with children to foster greater awareness of these processes.

Other presentations from Digital Child members included:

• Chis Zomer followed by presenting the EdTech database project, which uses a “database-as-method” approach to map EdTech trends.

• Michelle Cook presented her PhD work-inprogress, highlighting the absence of young children’s voices in digital rights discourse.

• A project examining social media use in schools was next, led by Tiffani Apps, Claire Rogerson and myself.

• Anna Bunn and Madeline Dobson examined the research environment for digital childhoods post-COVID-19.

• The symposium concluded with thoughtful reflections from Distinguished Professor Susan Danby and Dr. Rebecca Ng.

Read the full blog post

Milestone Publications

The Educated Child research program produced milestone publications in 2024. Those publications included:

Digital Media Use in Early Childhood

The easy interface of touchscreen technologies like tablets and smartphones has enabled children to access the digital world from a very young age. But while some commentators are enthusiastic about how this can open a new world for fun, learning, and developing digital skills, others see the dangers of yet more screens, inauthentic play, and time spent isolated with electronic babysitters that detract from interaction with parents and learning social skills.

Taking five as the age when children transition into formal education, this book draws on a three-year research project examining the realities of under six-year-olds’ experiences of these technologies in the UK and Australia. With a theoretical context including Vygotsky, Bruner, Bronfenbrenner and Flewitt, the book examines how parents of young children evaluate the opportunities and risks of children’s digital media use in the context of other significant influences such as children’s time with grandparents, early childhood care and education.

Digital play in the early years: A systematic review

The extant literature regarding digital play suggests a predominate focus on touchscreen and digital Apps. Digital play is possible when children are afforded access to working or non-working technologies.

Digital play features include learning and development, situated, interactive, enjoyable and entertaining, meaningful, and gendered. Concerns of digital play on young children relate to physical activity and addiction.

Further research to support understandings of young children’s dynamic and ever-changing digital play in action.

Plans for 2025

The Educated Child program will build on progress from 2024 by building evidence-based resources for early educators, and parents and carers.

Plans include:

• creating modules for early educators on STEAM

• writing resources for parents and carers

• delivering the Parents, Young Children, and Digital Media symposium

• creating resources for teachers in the early years of schooling, including link between the curriculum and digital play

• building an engagement tool, co-developed with ACMI, to understand young children’s engagement in digital play

DC members attended AARE 2024 at Macquarie University where they staff a booth on the Centre for conference attendees.

Connected Child

Our Connected research program is focused on safe digital spaces – making online engagement safer while promoting healthy digital relationships.

Social media ban for children and teens

Connected program members’ responses to the social media and teens ban, including the official Digital Child submission to the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2024 [Provisions] inquiry, presentations to policymakers and experts at events such as the NSW Social Media Summit, and the multiple national and international media appearances and interviews. Thank you to CI Tama Lever, CI Michael Dezuanni, RF Aleesha Rodriguez and AI Amanda Levido in particular for their work on the public submission by the Digital Child in response to the Australian government’s public hearing on the ban.

Prof. Susan Bennett

Prof. Julian Sefton-Green

Prof. Michael Dezuanni

The NSW Social Media Summit brought together a range of experts and leaders from Australia and overseas

The design tricks keeping your kids hooked on games and apps – and 3 things you can do about it

by Chris Zomer and Sumudu Mallawaarachchi

Ever found yourself unable to resist checking out a social media notification? Or sending a random picture just to keep a Snapchat “streak” going? Or simply getting stuck staring at YouTube because it auto-played yet another cute cat video?

If so, you’re far from alone. And if we adults can’t resist such digital temptations, how can we expect children to do any better?

Designers use persuasive design techniques to make users spend more time on apps or platforms, so they can make more money selling ads. Below, we explain some of the most common design tricks used in popular games, social media and apps.

Decision-making made easy

Social media and streaming platforms strive to provide “seamless” user experiences. This makes it easy to stay engaged without needing to click anything very often, which also minimises any obvious opportunities where we might disengage.

These seamless experiences include things such as auto-play when streaming videos, or “infinite scrolling” on social media. When algorithms present us with a steady flow of content, shaped by what we have liked or engaged with in the past, we must put in extra effort to stop watching. Unsurprisingly, we often decide to stay put.

Rewards and dopamine hits

Another way to keep children engaged is by using rewards, such as stars, diamonds, stickers, badges or other “points” in children’s apps. “Likes” on social media are no different.

Rewards trigger the release of a chemical in our brains – dopamine – which not only makes us feel good but also leaves us wanting more.

Rewards can be used to promote good behaviour, but not always. In some

A dozen members of the Digital Child presented at the Association of Internet Researcher’s 25th conference in Sheffield, 30 October to 2 November. Centre members presented in two panels, including ‘The Digital Childhood Industry’ and ‘The Place of a Child on Platforms: Responsibilities, Obligations, & Expectations’, as well as giving a number of standalone papers and providing valuable mentorship at AoIR’s Doctoral Colloquium.

children’s apps, rewards are doubled if users watch advertisements.

Loot boxes and ‘gambling’

Variable rewards have been found to be especially effective. When you do not know when you will get a certain reward or desired item, you are more likely to keep going.

In games, variable rewards can often be found (or purchased) in the form of “loot boxes”. Loot boxes might be chests, treasures, or stacks of cards containing a random reward. Because of the unpredictable reward, some researchers have described loot boxes as akin to gambling, even though the games do not always involve real money.

The lure of streaks

Another problematic way of using rewards in design is negative reinforcement. For instance, when you are at risk of a negative outcome (like losing something good), you feel compelled to continue a particular behaviour.

“Streaks” work like this. If you do not do the same task for several days in a row, you will not get the extra rewards promised. Language learning app DuoLingo uses streaks, but so does Snapchat, a popular social media app.

Research has shown a correlation between Snapchat streaks and problematic smartphone use among teens.

Loss of reputation

Reputation is important on social media. Think of the number of Facebook friends you have, or the number of likes your post receives.

Sometimes designers build on our fear of losing our reputation. For instance, they can do this by adding a leaderboard that ranks users based on their score.

While you may have heard of the use of leaderboards in games, they are also common in popular educational apps such as Kahoot! or Education Perfect. Leaderboards introduce an element of competition that many students enjoy.

However, for some this competition has negative consequences – especially for those languishing low in the ranks.

Exploiting feelings of connection

Another tool in the designers’ bag of tricks is capitalising on the emotional ties or connections users form with influencers or celebrities on social media, or favourite media characters (such as Elmo or Peppa pig) for younger children.

While these connections can foster a sense of belonging, they can also be exploited for commercial gain, such as when influencers promote commercial products, or characters urge in-app purchases.

What can parents do?

Persuasive design isn’t inherently bad. Users want apps and games to be engaging, like we do for movies or TV shows. However, some design “tricks” simply serve commercial interests, often at the expense of users’ wellbeing.

It is not all bleak, though. Here are a few steps parents can take to help kids stay on top of the apps:

• have early and ongoing discussions with children about ideas such as the underlying commercial intent of what they are engaging with model good digital choices of not giving in to persuasive design, such as by avoiding digital distractions yourself

• use trustworthy resources to help in digital decision-making, such as Common Sense Media and Dark Pattern Games.

Milestone Publications

The Educated Child research program produced milestone publications in 2024. Those publications included:

Children, Media, and Pandemic Parenting: Family Life in Uncertain Times

This open access book examines changes in families’ rules and routines connected with media during the pandemic and shifts in parents’ understanding of children’s media use.

Drawing on interviews with 130 parents at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the book explores specific cultural contexts across seven countries: Australia, Canada, China, Colombia, South Korea, United Kingdom, and United States.

Readers will gain an understanding of family media practices during the pandemic and how they were influenced by contextual factors such as the pandemic restrictions, family relationships and situations, socioeconomic statuses, cultural norms and values, and sociotechnical visions, among others.

The Platformization of the Family: Towards a Research Agenda

This new open access book outlines how the digital platforms that mediate so many aspects of commercial and personal life have begun to transform everyday family existence. It presents theory and research methods to enable students and scholars to investigate the changes that platformization has brought to the routines and interactions of family life including intergenerational communication, interpersonal relationships, forms of care and togetherness.

The book emerged from a seminar jointly funded by the Collaboration of Humanities and Social Sciences in Europe project, the Norwegian Research Council and The Australian Centre of Excellence for the Study of the Digital Child held in Oslo May 2024.

Plans for 2025

The Connected Child program will build on progress from 2024 through a range of different research outputs, collaboration with different partners, and engagement with research end users.

Plans include:

• further development of Katrin Langton’s work on baby apps

• forthcoming publications on screen time building out of our Digital Child x ACMI event in 2024

• work on artificial intelligence in relation to children’s rights

• forthcoming publications on different and diversity in digital migrant families especially in concert with partnership with a safety and our ambitions to have impact and engagement on different communities across Australia

• main streaming findings on the everyday life of data bringing issues around datafication especially in early years settings to public awareness

• an event on first time parents and technology use in Perth

• work on media literacy developing frameworks and curriculum materials for early years

• industry consultation events for the Children’s Internet project, with events in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, focused on the issue of the quality of children’s digital content and experiences

Healthy Child

Our Healthy research focus is focused on healthy digital lives – understanding how digital technology intersects children’s lived experiences and providing guidance to families, educators, and policymakers as they navigate this space.

Research training and translation

The Healthy Child conducted a series of sessions on research dissemination and translation for Centre members. As part of this series, Sumudu Mallawaarachchi and Jade Burley shared the research dissemination process they underwent as a case study in action from their review study.

Healthy Child researchers represented the Centre at several international conferences during 2024. This included:

• Five Healthy Child researchers represented the Centre at the International Society for Physical Activity and Public Health Conference in Paris, delivering 8 presentations.

• Four Healthy Child researchers represented the Centre at the CHI PLAY Conference in Tampere, delivering a presentation and a workshop.

• Eight Healthy Child researchers represented the Centre at the Australasian Society for Physical Activity Conference in Perth, delivering 8 presentations. Healthy Child researchers were also successful in securing additional funding:

• Dr Cassandra Pattinson – DECRA. Understanding Light, Technology, and Environments of Children. $484,477.00

• Dr Myrto Mavilidi – DECRA. “Screening” digital active learning for young children. $487,974.00

• CI Simon Smith (lead) and colleagues –Technology, Light, and Children (TLC project)

• Healthy Child RFs Dr Nicole Hayes and Dr Sarah Stearne. Future Leaders – Capacity Building Award

Assoc Prof. Dylan Cliff

Assoc Prof. Sonia White

Tech can help kids connect with nature and go outdoors

Digital entertainment is widely perceived as addictive and detrimental. While the concept of screen time is contested, most Australian children are exceeding the current recommended guidelines.

Our research took a different approach, asking: could digital technologies be designed to foster nature connection? After looking at studies of digital technologies used by children aged eight years and under, we found a wide range of ways technology can help children find their way back into the great outdoors.

There are many ways to appropriate existing technologies and make new ones to help children connect with nature. Parents and educators can use accessible technologies like cameras, and applications such as QuestaGame, including their schools-oriented challenge.

To add mystery and excitement by having to look at the images later – much like with film cameras – parents can cover up the screen of a smartphone or digital camera.

Tech developers can use all this evidence to design dedicated tech tools for children to use in nature. These designs should be easy for young children to use, engage more senses than sight, and encourage outdoor play, wonder and care for nature.

If such technologies are designed in collaboration with children, families and educators, they have the chance to be widely embraced, both at home and in the classroom.

Screen use, young children and families

Screen “time” is just one piece of the puzzle when considering healthy screen habits for young children. What else should we be mindful of?

Here are 4 key tips, based on research.

Sharing insights on Australian parents’ perceptions of young children’s screen use with an inspiring group of global health professionals at #ISPAH2024

Milestone Publications

The Educated Child research program produced milestone publications in 2024. Those publications included:

Early childhood screen use contexts and cognitive and psychosocial outcomes: a systematic review and Meta-analysis

This paper was focused on the question: What are the associations of screen use contexts in early childhood with cognitive and psychosocial outcomes? Our researchers found that more program viewing and background television were associated with poorer cognitive outcomes while more program viewing, age-inappropriate content, and caregiver screen use were associated with poorer psychosocial outcomes. Co-use was positively associated with cognitive outcomes.

This means that the contexts of screen use (ie, type, content, co-use, and purpose of use) beyond screen time limits should be considered in global recommendations for families, clinicians, and educators.

This article was published in JAMA Pediatrics, the highest ranking pediatrics journal. An accompanying article was written for The Conversation, “We reviewed 100 studies about little kids and screens. Here are 4 ways to help your child use them well”, resulting in >39,000 reads and >80 media mentions.

Measurement Method Options to Investigate Digital Screen Technology Use by Children and Adolescents:

A Narrative Review

The role and potential impact of digital screen technology in the lives of children is heavily debated. Current evidence is limited by the weakness of measures typically used to characterise screen use, predominantly proxy- or self-reports with known inaccuracy and bias.

Robust and detailed evidence is needed to provide practical trustworthy guidance to families and professionals working with families. The purpose of this paper is to support researchers to select measurement method(s) that will provide robust and detailed evidence.

Plans for 2025

A meta-analysis of self-regulation and digital recreation from birth to adolescence

In this paper, our researchers identified 183 eligible studies to meta-analyse associations of self-regulation with digital recreation. Self-regulation was most studied in relation to digital recreation time and features of problematic digital engagement.

Associations of self-regulation with digital recreation time were small, implying low explanatory utility. Self-regulation was more highly associated with problematic digital recreation. Associations were mostly unmoderated by age, design, risk of bias, or measurement method.

Using Psychophysiological Data to Facilitate

Reflective Conversations with Children about their Player Experiences

In this paper, our researchers present a methodology which uses children’s psychophysiology as a prompt for reflective interviews, with two commercial off-the-shelf computer games (Rocket League and LEGO Builder’s Journey).

They consider the utility, reproducibility, reliability and validity of the method. In assessing the method, they discuss children’s experience of wearing the sensors, the insights generated from the psychophysiological data, and the understanding that emerged when prompting children to reflect and comment on their own psychophysiological data.

The Healthy Child program will build on progress from 2024 by extending the Healthy Child Forum and engaging with external stakeholders and partners through a symposium and international conferences.

Goals for 2024 include:

• Healthy Child forums: Extension of the ‘translation’ theme to include developing connections with industry – exploring the different ways and types of connections researchers might form with industry.

• Working towards a Healthy Child symposium (inviting Centre Partners and other industry representatives).

• Hosting a debate at an international public health conference about “screen time” limits for children and future developments in screen use guidance. The debate has been accepted as a symposium at the International Society for Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity Conference in Auckland 2025 and will be chaired by CIs Dylan Cliff and Juliana Zabateiro with CI Leon Straker as a speaker.

Partnerships & Collaborations

Partners of the Digital Child play an essential role in Centre research and activities. In 2024, our partners supported a range of initiatives which boosted the profile of Centre research and prompted the creation of new projects.

Inaugural Digital Childhoods Summit addresses children’s wellbeing and safety

Over seventy people gathered in Canberra for the Digital Child’s inaugural Digital Childhoods Summit in June 2024.

With a focus on policy and practice, the Summit was a peak meeting of the many key stakeholders – including government, regulators, industry, and the community sector – who care for children and their digital lives.

The program included four panel discussions on safety, inclusion, health & wellbeing, and digital futures. The formation of the program was guided by our Steering Committee, which included Centre partner organisations UNICEF Australia, the Telstra Foundation, and the eSafety Commissioner as well as SNAICC. The committee was chaired by CI Smith.

Panellists for the first day included:

• Julie Inman Grant (eSafety Commissioner)

• Sarah Davies AM (Alannah & Madeline Foundation),

• Lucy Thomas OAM (PROJECT ROCKIT),

• Taryn Marks (Career Trackers),

• Heather Spaccavento (The Smith Family), and

• Dale Murray (Life Without Barriers).

Panellists on the second day included:

• Jackie Hallan (Reach Out),

• Imogen Bell (Orygen Digital),

• Bridianne O’Dea (Black Dog Institute),

• Elliot Pace (Youth Ambassador, eSafety),

• Jorja Sigtenhorst (Youth Ambassador, UNICEF Australia), and

• Annabel Astbury (ABC Education).

The result of the Summit was a landscape report, articulating the current opportunities and challenges for supporting children’s wellbeing and safety within the digital world.

From these activities, the Centre provided briefings on artificial intelligence and education to the Department of Education at an Australian Council of Learned Academies event, and the Assistant Secretary for the Online Safety Branch at the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development, Communications and the Arts.

Anxieties around kids and tech – should parents worry about ‘screen time’?

In October 2024, the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) hosted the fifth public seminar in the Digital Child x ACMI seminar series.

The ‘Screen time anxieties: Changing the conversation around kids and tech’ seminar brought together three experts from various backgrounds for a dynamic discussion around ‘screen time’ guidelines and how those impact and fit into the reality of everyday family life.

Panellists Dr Billy Garvey from Guiding Growing Minds and the popular ‘Pop Culture Parenting’ podcast, Fiona Holder from Playgroup Victoria and Daniel Donahoo from Project Rockit

each shared their views on how parents and caregivers can navigate the public discussion and advice around children and technology, when conflicting advice and information is often framed as critical to their child’s health and future.

“The event was a great chance to explore the pressures and expectations that are often bound up in talking about kids and screens,” said Dr Kate Mannell, event convener and panel chair. “And also to experiment with a different kind of conversation that starts from really trying to understand families in all their diversity, before thinking about what technology use means in each family context.”

“Drawing on their personal and professional experiences, each of the panellists really demonstrated what a more family-centred, empathetic, nuanced conversation around kids and tech could look like.”

A recording from the seminar was distributed via the Digital Child podcast and YouTube channel.

Digital Child and UNICEF Australia champion young children’s digital wellbeing

The ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child has announced a new partnership with UNICEF Australia, that will see the two organisations collaborate on research, policy, and advocacy to promote digital wellbeing for young children.

The new collaboration was announced at an event with the Minister for Communications Michelle Rowland at the Museum of Australian Democracy in Canberra in March 2024.

Digital Child Director and QUT Distinguished Professor Susan Danby said the partnership was an exciting opportunity to combine the expertise of each organisation, allowing for meaningful work that will achieve better outcomes for children.

“The online world plays an increasingly significant role in children’s lives, and it is important that their digital experiences are safe, enriching, and fun,” she said.

“We are thrilled to partner with UNICEF Australia to champion children’s rights and wellbeing in the online world.

“The Digital Child is driven by the goal of supporting children to be confident and safe as they grow up in a rapidly changing digital world. This new partnership will help us advance towards this goal and make a meaningful difference in the lives of Australian children.”

John Livingstone, Head of Digital Policy at UNICEF Australia, said that across the world, UNICEF worked to make the internet a safer place for children to learn, socialise and express themselves.

“UNICEF Australia is thrilled with our new partnership with the Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child, which will see us bring together the global influence of UNICEF and the expertise of world-leading Australian researchers, to improve the digital world for Aussie children,” Mr Livingstone said.

“We look forward to collaborating and showcasing each other’s work with the goal of ultimately improving digital environments that better support the healthy development and wellbeing of Australian children

UNICEF Australia and the Digital Child will share research and evidence across each organisation and amplify one another’s work.

Technology & Wellbeing discussions with the Telstra Foundation

The Digital Child joined two Telstra Foundation Technology & Wellbeing Roundtables in 2024.

Established in 2008 by Telstra Foundation and ReachOut, the TWRT promotes cross-sector discussion about the relationship between technology and young people’s wellbeing among its 60+ members.

The TWRT is not an advocacy body, and to promote open discussion, all meetings are not recorded and are held under Chatham House rules. As one of the longest-running communityled roundtables focused on technology and young people’s wellbeing, TWRT is a great forum to connect on emerging issues and learn from each other.

Attendees included representatives from industry and non-government organisations.

Follow up workshops inspired by the roundtable focused on co-design with children. Led by Dr Aleesha Rodriquez, this workshop explored how children and practitioners can co-create better digital futures together. In creating a better ‘Children’s Internet’, children’s perspectives need to be part of the design process, both from the start and throughout. Through this playful and interactive workshop, attendees gained practical knowledge and resources on how to approach co-design with young children.

Partner Network Group established

The Partner Network Group was established with the purpose of bringing together the Centre’s partners to exchange ideas, partner share for mutual benefit, and build and strengthen partner connections.

The Digital Child held two online meetings in 2024. Meetings were chaired by Dr Sandra Cheeseman, Chief Executive Officer, Creche & Kindergarten Association QLD (C&K). Planning is currently underway for the Digital Child’s first Partner networking event/symposium in early 2025.

Funding awarded to Digital Child project by the Telstra Foundation

The Digital Child will advance digital inclusion and literacy among children in low-socioeconomic and culturally diverse communities through a new ‘Uplifting Digital Connections for Young Minds’ project.

The project has been funded by the Telstra Foundation through their Young & Connected fund, which funds partners who will deliver projects connecting vulnerable children and young people to the digital world.

Centre Director Susan Danby said: “We’ve experienced a lot of projects that come in and tell us what’s best for our communities without truly understanding the needs. That’s why we’re using co-design to work with community. We employ local people, and we engage deeply with each community building from their strengths. This will drive more impactful outcomes and better futures for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young people.”

I am Me! Project with Life Without Barriers

Working in partnership with Life Without Barriers (an out-of-home care service that operates across states/territories in Australia), the Digital Child has been having yarns with (1) adults who were in care as young children, (2) carers (including kinship carers), (3) care support officers/managers and (4) app developers.

Our researchers are exploring key stakeholders’ thoughts on the benefits and drawbacks of children in out-of-home care (aged 4-8) having access to a digital backpack, including for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children/families

ABC Education publishes articles on Centre research

The responsibility to manage children’s use of digital media is often unevenly distributed between parents

Published by ABC Education

Written by Katrin Langton and Xinyu Zhao

Digital parenting is strongly associated with the responsibility to moderate device use and children’s exposure to screens. But research suggests this responsibility is often not distributed evenly and that this “digital labour” commonly falls to the primary caregiver — predominantly the mother.

Using screens can affect a child’s physical health and development, but that doesn’t mean screens are bad

Published by ABC Education.

Written by Leon Straker and Juliana Zabatiero

People often worry about how the use of digital technology affects the physical health and development of children and young people. So for more than 20 years, our team at Curtin University’s School of Allied Health has been researching these physical implications. We’ve identified two types of risks: risks while using screens, and risks because using screens replaces other activities. But we’ve also developed some ways to think about screens and screen use that parents and professionals may find useful.

How can we make the internet better for children?

By Michael Dezuanni and Aleesha Rodriguez

Australian children love using the internet to play games, talk to friends, learn and be entertained. But have you ever considered what a better internet for kids could look like? At the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child, we believe it is possible to create a better “Children’s Internet” and we have developed some principles about how to do this.

Using digital platforms to communicate between home and school creates benefits but also many challenges

By Cathrine Neilsen-Hewett, Tiffani Apps and Sue Bennett

For schools, digital platforms provide online spaces to connect with parents and students — to share attendance, school reports, upcoming activities and students’ experiences at school, including learning and achievement. But there are also challenges that come with digital platforms for schools, services, teachers, early years educators, parents and children, such as increased digital workload, information overload, coercive participation and the public sharing of children’s data. So what can we do to ensure digital communications support the best kinds of home–school connections?

Partner news: Telstra Foundation launches Australia Youth Digital Index

By Cathrine Neilsen-Hewett, Tiffani Apps and Sue Bennett

The Australian Youth Digital Index is an annual report that assesses quantitative and qualitative data collected from young Australians aged 8-25 about their digital experiences. It also includes insights from parents, carers, social workers, and youth workers. The information is gathered through a combination of surveys and interviews. The Index presents a snapshot of digital usage, perceptions, attitudes and behaviours, and over time will highlight evolving trends.

Partner news: Scitech Impact Report

The Digital Child was cited in our partner Scitech’s 2023-2024 Impact Report as a valuable partner. The report identified the Move it! exhibit (co-designed by a Digital Child Education team with creatives at Scitech) as one of the most popular exhibits.

“Scitech has been collaborating with the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child since 2020, with a range of different research collaborations and projects investigating how children growing up in the 21st century engage with digital technologies Over the last 12 months, there have been exciting developments in three of these projects: Scitech Online Learning, The Creative Cove, and a Transmedia PhD project.” (p28)

Scitech project team - Karen Murcia, Susan Blackley, Amity Campbell, Michelle de Kok, Emma Cross, Kim Maslin, and Geoff Lowe

Mentorship & Capacity Building

Building human capacity through mentoring and training. The Digital Child delivered a new funding program for ECR and HDR members in 2024 to help our members grow as future-ready researchers who can deliver high-impact and wide-reaching research in digital childhoods.

Future Leaders and Capacity Building Funding

Our new Future Leaders funding provides funding to support the career development of our Research Fellows, HDR students and Research assistants meanwhile our Capacity Building Award enables the same members to undertake new and innovative projects relevant to Centre research. The funds are aimed at investing in early career researchers and their research pathways to pursue innovative ideas. These projects may be pure research or applied projects for real-world applications.

Future Leaders funding

Research Fellows, HDR students and Research assistants who are Digital Child members can apply for funding to cover:

• Professional development award for individuals

• Innovative research translation award

• Small research projects

• International collaboration award for a minimum of four weeks

Capacity Building funding

• Up to $20,000 for team projects consisting of at least 3 or more Centre PhD students and Research Fellows

• Funds can be used to support equipment, consumables, stipends for students, travel, and services that are necessary to complete the project.

Future Leaders Funding - Travel award:

• HDR Giselle Woody (ECU node)

• HDR Naomi Fillmore (UQ node)

• HDR Simon Daniele (Curtin node)

Future Leaders -Capacity Building Award

• RF Katrin Langton (Deakin node)

• RF Kristy Corser (QUT node)

• HDR Lisa Kilgariff (UoW node)

• RF Nicole Hayes (QUT node)

• RF Sarah Stearne (Curtin node)

• RF Irina Silva (QUT node)

Primary Carer Support Award

• Janelle Europe CHI PLAY 2024 and AoIR2024 (Finland & UK)

HDR Club update

Written by Melissa De la Cruz

New HDR Liaison Officer commenced role:

In 2024, the Digital Child organised its first call for the newly created Higher Degree by Research (HDR) Liaison Officer role. This role focuses on engaging with over 30+ HDR students across the centre, representing the students’ perspective in discussions with senior centre members, and to work towards new forms of community engagement. This institutionalised the work that Katrin Langton has shepherded in previous years. In the second quarter of 2024, Melissa De la Cruz from Deakin University began the role and marked it by conducting a baseline community survey to help identify and craft priorities for the year. This survey also allowed us to gather ideas for events and initiatives that HDRs would like to see DC host, such as writing retreats and research grants for HDRs.

Club meetings in 2024: Throughout the year, a total of seven hybrid meetings were organised. This included four Journal Club meetings represented by different nodes of DC and three HDR catch-up sessions where we celebrated important milestones and shared quarterly updates on ongoing work. A significant highlight for the year is always the Digital Child Annual

Meeting, and in 2024, the SMART Day was organised for ECR and HDRs.

New funding opportunities for HDRs: In September, the DC launched two new funding opportunities. The first, the Future Leaders Program, was created to support the career development of Centre ECRs, HDRs, and RAs. It started as a discussion during the Digital Sandpit and was finalised after several consultative meetings with senior members of the DC. This program now enables HDRs to develop both individual and collaborative research projects with funding assistance. The second funding opportunity is the self-directed HDR Fund, which allows the community to decide on professional development activities before the end of the financial year. To aid in decision-making, an HDR Governance Committee was conceptualised, including the HDR Liaison and representatives from the Healthy, Connected, and Educated themes.

ECR Club update

Written by Dr Sarah Matthews

2024 was a busy year for the Early Career Researcher’s (ECR) Club. The ECR club aims to support those who are early in their career, are navigating future prospects, and to provide a sense of community in the centre across nodes.

In the first half of the year, we had four guest presenters and updates from our fellow ECRs, including spotlights on Maggie Zgambo’s and Danica Hendry’s work.

We began 2024 with a panel discussion led by CI Karen Murcia and AI Kylie Stevenson on job applications, including building a CV, negotiating a job offer, providing evidence for claims, and finding supportive social environments.

Dr Aleesha Rodreguez gave us a presentation and an overview of their internship at the ABC, which included stories and insights into working with media networks such as ABC, providing interviews, and pitching an idea.

With the increasing interest in social media and children, our most recent guest was Professor Dan Angus who gave us some direction on how

to counter negative (media) narratives. Dan Angus’s advice on how to lead narratives, his experience of when things don’t always go to plan, and what he learnt from this experience was invaluable.

From my viewpoint, the highlight of 2024 was the second half of the year, which included discussions on the future longevity of the club and the set-up of the future leader’s fund. The Future Leaders Fund is based on the innovations of Lisa Walker and Pernilla Miller to support individuals in progressing in their projects and careers. The ECR group ran workshops to consider how we as a collective can invest in capacity building through - participation, sponsorship, and training aiming for equal opportunities. The group proposed many intriguing ideas that will be implemented in the coming months, among them to move to an overseeing committee that includes representatives from different nodes/states to promote participation across the centre.

Centre workshops

Workshops for Centres members in 2024 included writing and methodology workshops, maker workshops, and training for HDR and ECR members.

SMARTer Day

This year a full day professional development workshop for Centre HDRs and ECRs took place on Monday 5th August at Deakin Downtown, prior to DCAM.

The HDR/ECR Workshop brought together current and recent PhD students from across the Centre for a program of guest speakers and networking opportunities. Attendees had the chance to learn from internationally renowned scholar Prof Sonia Livingstone, Dr John Davis as well as local experts, scholars, and each other.

ECR Workshop on Writing for the Conversation

The Digital Child ran a workshop on ‘Pitching to The Conversation’ with the Life Course Centre and ADM+S. The workshop featured an editor talk by Deputy Health Editor Anna Evangeli (The Conversation).

Cross-Centre of Excellence mentoring program continues to grow

The Cross-Centre of Excellence mentoring program launched in 2023 with twelve Australian Research Council Centres of Excellence continued to grow in 2024.

By the end of the year, 420 participants were enrolled in the program. Over 230 mentoring relationships have been established through the platform used for the program, Mentorloop. These relationships have included more than 1,600 mentoring interactions and more than 1,500 messages on the platform.

The continued collaboration between Centres of Excellence for this mentoring program has ensured that our researchers have access to a broad range of mentors and mentees with a range of experience and expertise to share.

ARC Centres of Excellence Director’s Forum and Professional Staff Day

The Digital Child and Life Course Centre convened the Director’s Forum on July 23. The ARC Centres of Excellence Professional Staff Day followed on July 24.

The Director’s Forum provides a valuable opportunity for Directors and Chief Operations Officers of Centres of Excellences to connect with fellow leaders, develop relationships across Centres and engage in reflection and discussion of the challenges and opportunities unique to Centre of Excellence leadership. Attendees included over 50 Centre Directors and COOs from ARC Centres of Excellence Australiawide. Presentations at the Forum included sessions on First Nations Engagement, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, Research Translation, and CoE Best Practice.

The Professional Staff Day provided networking, learning, and growth for Centre of Excellence professional staff. Over 120 attendees connected with colleagues, shared insights, and expanded their skill sets in a collaborative environment.

Centre Culture & Connection

We are committed to building lasting connections between our Centre members who are located around Australia among six universities. A blend of virtual and in-person events and other initiatives helps us nurture our Centre culture.

Digital Child Annual Meeting 2024

Held in Melbourne, our 2024 Annual Meeting included three keynote presentations from Professor Sonia Livingstone, Dr John Davis, and Professor Rebekah Willett as well as presentations from Centre members and a public seminar.

The program included:

• Welcome from our Centre Director

• Keynotes by Professor Sonia Livingstone, Dr John Davis, and Professor Rebekah Willett

• Two 3MT panel with Naomi Fillmore, Kate Lewis, Kim Maslin, Chimi Om, Janine Singleton, Lori Ouyang, and Amanda Cipriani

• Data management session with Andrew Rohl

ACODA session with the co-leads Daniel Johnson, Grace Sarra, Juliana Zabatiero, Steven Howard (check out the ACODA nesting studies info on the Hub. Go to the Resource Library for more details!)

Speculative Futures session with Hyeon-Seon Jeong, Rebecca Ng, and Aleesha Rodriguez

Pandemic Parenting book launch and Media Use in Early Childhood launch

During DCAM 2024, Centre members were recognised by the following awards:

• Sumudu Mallawaarachchi and Kimberly Maslin on receiving Emerging Scholar Awards

• Amanda Levido and Kimberly Maslin on receiving the Innovative Application of Research Methods Award

• Loretta Watson on receiving the Outstanding Performance and Professionalism Award

• ACODA Working Group and Leadership Team on receiving the Director’s Award for Influential Impact and Engagement. The individuals receiving this award are: Juliana Zabatiero, Grace Sarra, Daniel Johnson, Lisa Walker, Claire Enkera. Kate Thompson, Danica Hendry, Audrey Cooke, Luci Pangrazio, Cassandra Pattinson, Maggie Zgambo, Lisa Whitehead, Dylan Cliff, Jade Burley, Steven Howard

• Amanda Cipriani on receiving the People’s Choice award for their 3MT presentation!

Public event: What makes a good childhood in Australia today?

Our experiences in childhood provide a foundation that shapes and informs the rest of our lives. Childhood in Australia today is complex – full of conflict, competition, inequalities and anxieties, but also opportunities, choices, learning and growth.

What actually makes a good childhood? What does that look like in Australia today? What does a child need for a good childhood?

Hosted by the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child, this public seminar brings together an array of voices within the Australian community to answer those questions. The seminar showcased a new video featuring a broad range of perspectives around childhood, from children and parents to educators and policymakers, and will provide valuable insights into what a good childhood means to different people.

The seminar featured two guest speakers –Professor Sonia Livingstone from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and Dr John Davis from Deakin University – who joined this important conversation and led an international and First Nations voice, as they examined the state of contemporary childhood across the country.

The seminar was hosted in Melbourne by our Centre partner, the Telstra Foundation.

Reflecting on our Children’s Media Club for Researchers

Written by Amanda Levido, Danica Hendry, Michael Dezuanni, Madeleine Dobson, and Kristy Corser

You can’t go into a playground or classroom without seeing and hearing children talk about their favourite media experiences. For many children, what they watch, play or listen to is deeply important. Children act out scenes from their favourite TV shows, or discuss the characters they are most interested in. They may explain to each other the complex ways to search for and navigate the best locations in a game, or even make and build their own games. These media worlds, whether adults acknowledge them or not, form the basis for friendships and collaborations, and children often feel a very real connection to their lived media experiences and the characters, personalities and producers involved in the creation of such media.

We were keen to explore media together in a way that firstly valued children’s experiences and, secondly, provided us as researchers with a way to approach children’s media experiences with curiosity. The Children’s Media Club for Researchers was established as a result of this interest.

Below are examples of what we have examined:

Bluey

Bluey is everywhere – at our hardware stores, on our food, but especially on our screens! We explored two Bluey episodes that specifically dealt with representations of technology.

We had fun creating our own Bluey episodes that reflected technology use in families in different ways and used the Faceytime episode as inspiration to consider how our lives as researchers are often mediated by a range of different screens. Through our collaborations with each other we aimed to critically engage with both Bluey as a TV show enjoyed by children (and adults) and how TV shows depicted technology use by families.

Gardening Australia Junior

“Costa” is a household name for many Australian adults, and is now inspiring joy in gardening and outdoor play for young children. The show also brings different digital technologies to life in imaginative nature inspired ways, using the “Lily-pad” device for learning about plant and wildlife and banksia pods as phones to answer gardening related questions.

Together we explored the extension resources created for the show on the ABC Early Education website and dreamed up our own technology inspired episode as well as extension activities inspiring movement and imaginative play.

Minecraft

Minecraft is experienced by almost all children today, and it is one of their main digital media platforms for creating and being social. As a group, we investigated the Minecraft platform, and its many variations and we spoke about how Minecraft plays an important role in popular culture and playground conversations.

We also spoke about how Minecraft is monetised and the various options children and parents have to access content, including user-generated content. Of particular interest is how Minecraft is a platform for the creation of YouTube content, and that children often consume Minecraft as video content. Minecraft Let’s Players on YouTube are amongst the most popular influencers online. Through investigating Minecraft and other platforms like Roblox, we can gain important insights into contemporary children’s digital cultures and experiences.

International visit creates strong ties with Digital Child

Marie Utterberg Modén and Svea Kiesewetter, University of Gothenburg, Sweden

We are delighted to report on the outcomes achieved during our recent project supported by the Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child. Our activities included presenting at the Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) conference in Sydney, where we took part in a symposium organized by our colleagues Tiffani Apps, Karley Beckman and Rebecca Ng. This event offered an excellent opportunity to share our work with a wider academic audience and foster connections with researchers working in related fields.

We also engaged with the University of Wollongong by presenting our work to our colleagues and other staff at the Centre. The session facilitated meaningful discussions about the potential applications and broader implications a tool developed by us, namely Infrareveal, and how to use it in academic and professional contexts. Additionally, we conducted an in-person workshop, during which

we trained colleagues in the use of the tool. This hands-on session not only demonstrated the tool’s functionality but also equipped participants with the knowledge and skills needed to conduct similar workshops in schools themselves. Furthermore, we visited a local school during this trip, which provided us with valuable insights into the practical applications of our tool and allowed us to engage directly with educators and students, further enriching our research perspective.

We have established a strong basis for ongoing collaboration. Next year, we plan to expand the workshops to additional schools, working closely with our colleagues at the Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child to ensure the implementation of the tool in these educational settings. Moreover, discussions are already underway regarding potential co-authored publications, which are a critical component of this collaboration. These publications will serve to disseminate the outcomes and insights of our work to the broader academic community. The support provided by the Centre has been valuable in enabling these activities, and we appreciate the opportunities it has offered to advance this work.

Communication & Outreach

The Digital Child aims to be a trusted voice on digital childhoods in Australia. Communications and outreach form a key part of our strategy for engaging with our stakeholders.

Resources for families and educators

The Digital Child launched a range of resources for families, educators, and other stakeholders in 2024.

INFOGRAPHIC

How can video games make you feel better?

INFOGRAPHIC

Screen use, young children, and families

TOPIC SPOTLIGHTS

Webpages with Centre resources and research:

PODCAST PODCAST

Growing Up Digital podcast episodes by Digital Child members

Early Start Expert Insights with Lisa Kervin

Engaging with policy debate over social media ban for children and young people in Australia

In late 2024, Centre researchers provided expert commentary on the Australian government’s proposal of a social media ban for children and young people with interviews on ABC News, ABC News in-depth, The Guardian, and ABC Perth. According to iSentia, the stories had a potential reach of over 1.3 million people.

The Digital Child provided updates to stakeholders on the progress of the policy debate and created resources focused on children’s use of social media.

The Australian government committed to a restriction (or age limit for accessing platforms) with an added option of exemptions for platforms that demonstrate ‘low risk of harm to children’.

Minister for Communications Michelle Rowlands said at the NSW and SA Social Media Summit that, “The aim of an exemption is to create positive incentives for digital platforms

to develop age-appropriate versions of their apps, and embed safe and healthy experiences by design.”

What do we know about children and young people’s use of social media?

• eSafety Commissioner – 84% of Australian children between the ages of 8–12 have been using social media and messaging services since the beginning of the year. Data suggests approximately 1.3 million under-aged kids have used social media and messaging services since the start of this year.

• ReachOut Australia – 73% of young people use social media platforms for mental health purposes.

Why is a nuanced approach important?

• Australian Child Rights Taskforce – Age restrictions affect children and young people’s rights to access and participate online safely.

• Digital Child – Learning about social media before adulthood is an important step in helping children and young people be informed in their future use of platforms.

Listen here

Listen here

Young people want solutions that balance benefits and risks

Written by Karley Beckman and Tiffani Apps

On 10 October 2024, we attended a Social Media Summit run by the New South Wales and South Australian state governments.

The Social Media Summit began with the ambitious goal of bringing together experts, policymakers, academics, young people, and community voices to discuss the positive and negative impacts of social media on people’s lives, and how the government can best support digital wellbeing. While everyone shared a desire to act in the best interests of young people, there were diverse opinions on how to achieve this.

Several key themes emerged during the discussions, especially around how to define social media and identify the root causes of the risks being discussed. The main distinctions included:

• Social media that exposes young people to risks from others through contact and exposure, such as platforms like Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram, and messaging apps like WhatsApp and Messenger.

• Social media that uses algorithms to influence behavior, commonly seen on feed-based platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube.

• Platforms that datafy users and profile their behaviors, which is all online platforms.

The richest discussions came from the voices of young people. Digital Child representatives, Professor Julian Sefton-Green, Emeritus Professor Paul Chandler, and Emeritus Professor Donna Cross, participated in a panel. While the panel offered valuable insights, the Q&A, led by young members of the audience, stole the spotlight. They raised critical questions about the equity of mobile phone bans in schools and the pressures teachers face in managing distractions, cyberbullying, and more.

The day’s discussions reinforced the importance of evidence-based advice, drawing on the work of our Centre members and the recommendations made in the Australian Child Rights Taskforce’s open letter about social media bans.

The message from young people was clear: they want to be heard, and they want creative solutions that balance the benefits of social media with appropriate regulations to minimise risks.

Unfortunately, as the day progressed, many decision-makers left, and neither of the state premiers were present for what was arguably the most important session—when Julie Iman Grant and Alice Dawkins presented evidence-based advice for urgent government action. Ministers were also absent during the final perspectives from the young people in attendance.

the full article

Digital Child representatives attended the Social Media Summit

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Feature story: National project promoting safe screen time helps eightyear-old publish first book

Eight-year-old Liesel Winkler loves a good story.

The Perth-based student is already reading the 600-page, sixth Harry Potter novel and will “randomly write her own books” in her spare time, including a recently penned comedy about a farmer and a pig.

The passion has even helped her achieve one of her big life goals — becoming a published author.

“I brought [the book] to school to show everyone,” Liesel said.

“And I also showed the librarian, and she was really amazed.”

The Digital Child ran a national competition for children between the ages of five and 12 to submit a concept for a story based on the theme of screen time and balance.

Liesel’s mum Lisa, who is a teacher, thought it was an excellent topic for young students to think about.

“Because they are what we call ‘digital natives’, you can’t really remove technology from them,” she said.

“They need to learn how to use it and they need to learn how to balance it.”

Liesel Winkler worked with Kim Maslin to develop her children’s book. (Supplied: Lisa Winkler)

Kim Maslin is a digital technologies educator and author. (ABC Esperance: Emily Smith)

Liesel Winkler worked with Kim Maslin (on the screen) to develop her children’s book. (Supplied: Lisa Winkler)

Digital Child blog

The Digital Child published 19 blog posts in 2024 through our regular member contributions and International Perspectives series.

INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE SERIES

“Too much, too slow, too fast” –Parents’ temporal experiences of digital technologies and family life

Migrant families in the digital age

Kid Influencers for social justice: playing at “being empowered.”

Lessons from the pandemic inform Gen AI

BLOG POSTS WITH 360INFO

How baby apps are shaping modern parenting

How is digital technology affecting our kids’ sleep?

Social media bans distract from the real issue

BLOG POSTS FROM

Is your child’s photo on their school Facebook page? What does this mean for their privacy?

More Indigenous children are going to preschool, but is this enough?

We reviewed 100 studies about little kids and screens. Here are 4 ways to help your child use them well

Kids under 13 use social media. How can parents help keep them safe online?

New teen accounts on Instagram are a welcome step, but real ‘peace of mind’ requires more

The online world isn’t always safe. Here’s what to know before posting photos of your child.

Any online ‘kidfluencer’ content or images of children can be sexualised, so what can be done?

Public events and outreach trips

Digital Child members host public events in our purpose-built Children’s Technology Centres at QUT, UoW, and Curtin. The mid-term review provided the Centre with an opportunity to review how many attendees have been hosted between 2022-2024.

QUT Children’s Technology Centre (2022-2024)

1,743

UoW Children’s Technology Play Space (2022-2024)

577 802

Curtin Children’s Technology Cove (2024)

209

87 36 children and adults across 55 events. families and their Through the Friday Bytes digital technology program children. attendees children and including professional organisations

One significant community event in 2024 - the Festival of Digital Play - saw almost double the amount of attendees from the previous year with 404 people present.

Additional outreach examples from the Centre include: “My Future Matters”, a year 7 and year 9 outreach program with Woolyungah Indigenous Centre, workshops run for the Telstra Foundation on co-designing with children; an online workshop for the Starlight Children’s Foundation’s Experience Producers; and a World Cafe for early childhood educators on digital technology.

Member spotlight: Digital Child researcher performs at comedy festival

Dr Aleesha Rodriguez performed at the Brisbane Comedy Festival as part of the Future Science Talks, which involved several professional workshops on the skill of presenting research in an informative and comedic way. They spoke about one of the projects they co-lead called “Speculating about my digital future”.

Envisioning Technologies of the Future with Australian and South Korean Children

This project sought to understand how Australian and South Korean children between ages 6 and 8 envision digital technologies of the future.

160 children from primary schools in South Korea (Bucheon, Gwangmyeong, Siheung) and Australia (Canberra) participated in workshops where they designed, drew, wrote and narrated about future digital technologies.

Australian Children’s Drawings

Artefacts produced from these workshops were exhibited in South Korea and online in 2024, with plans to exhibit the work in Australia in 2025, to open conversations around how digital technologies of the future can be co-designed with children for children.

This project was supported by the AustraliaKorea Foundation, the Korea-Australia Foundation and Gyeonggido Office of Education Media Education Centre.

Find out more

South Korean Children’s Drawings

Performance

The Digital Child monitors and reports on progress against Key Performance Indicators.

Publications

Book

Green, L. , Haddon, L. , Livingstone, S. , O’Neill, B. , Stevenson, K.J. , & Holloway, D. (2024). Digital media use in early childhood: Birth to six. London,: Bloomsbury Academic. https://doi. org/10.5040/9781350120303

Book Chapters

Healy, S.. Willett, R., and Zhao, X. (2024), Temporarilities and changing understandings of children’s use of media: Australia, China, and the United States in Willett, R., & Zhao, X (eds), Children, Media, and Pandemic Parenting : Family Life in Uncertain Times. (1st ed.). Taylor & Francis Group.

Kennedy, J., Holcombe-James, I., Mannell, K., & Boyle, E. (2024). How to Make Affordability-Focused Digital Inclusion Interventions More Effective: Lessons from the Connected Students Program. In S. Yates & E. Carmi (Eds.), Digital Inclusion: International Policy and Research (pp. 111-128). Cham: Springer International Publishing.

Kervin, L., and Mantei, J., (2024). Gaming for literacy learning, Flint, A. S., Vicars, M., Muscat, A., Bennet, M., Ewing, R., Shaw, K., Kervin, L., Mantei, J., Iorio, J., & Hamm, C (Eds), Literacy in Australia : Pedagogies for Engagement. (4th ed.). John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated.

Kervin, L., and Mantei, J., (2024) Young children creating multimodal stories in their home, school, and digital spaces, Mackenzie, N. M., & Scull, J. (Eds.). Understanding and supporting young writers from birth to 8 (2nd Edition). Routledge.

Osman, Kim, Marshall, Amber, & Dezuanni, Michael (2024) Digital inclusion and learning at home: Challenges for low-income Australian families. In Yates, Simeon & Carmi, Elinor (Eds.) Digital Inclusion: International Policy and Research. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, Switzerland, pp. 87-109.

Parker, M., J. Mantei, L. Kervin (2024). Oracy as the foundation for reading and writing, Flint, A. S., Vicars, M., Muscat, A., Bennet, M., Ewing, R., Shaw, K., Kervin, L., Mantei, J., Iorio, J., & Hamm, C (Eds), Literacy in Australia : Pedagogies for Engagement. (4th ed.). John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated.

Reddan, B., Rutherford, L., Schoonens, A., & Dezuanni, M. (2024). Social Reading Cultures on BookTube, Bookstagram, and BookTok. (First edition.). Taylor & Francis Group.

Sefton-Green, J., (2024), Foreword: Learning from the pandemic in Willett, R., & Zhao, X (eds), Children, Media, and Pandemic Parenting : Family Life in Uncertain Times. (1st ed.). Taylor & Francis Group.

Sheppard, L. C., X. Zhao, N. Coulter (2024), Space, time, and families relational media practices: China and Canada in Willett, R., & Zhao, X (eds), Children, Media, and Pandemic Parenting : Family Life in Uncertain Times. (1st ed.). Taylor & Francis Group.

Smith, K. L., Shade, L.R., Grant, L., Kumar, P., Lorenzo, G.Z., Gaia, A. Mascheroni, G., Heath, M.K., Krutka, D.G., Pangrazio, L., Selwyn, N., . (2024). Children as data subjects: Families, schools, and everyday lives. In J. Jarke, Bates, J. (Ed.), Dialogues in Data Power: Shifting Response-ability in a Datafied World (pp. 31-51). Bristol University Press.

Willett, R., Zhao, X., and García Gómez, D. C. (2024), Conclusion: Contributions, provocations, and calls to action in Willett, R., & Zhao, X (eds), Children, Media, and Pandemic Parenting : Family Life in Uncertain Times. (1st ed.). Taylor & Francis Group.

Zhao, X., M. Mauk, A. Kim (2024), Imaginaries of parental controls: The state, market, and families in Willett, R., & Zhao, X (eds), Children, Media, and Pandemic Parenting : Family Life in Uncertain Times. (1st ed.). Taylor & Francis Group.

Conference Papers

Ashleigh-Rae O’Neill, Sarah Matthews, Janet Wiles, and Ben Matthews. 2024. ‘Socialifying’ the design of language learning applications for classroom use. In Companion Publication of the 2024 ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference (DIS ‘24 Companion). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 279–283. https://doi.org/10.1145/3656156.3663735

Lee, . J. (2025). EXPLORING THE NEXUS OF K-POP DANCE CHALLENGES: CHILDREN’S K-POP DREAM, INTERNET STARDOM, AND CUTE LABOR IN THE EVOLVING CULTURE INDUSTRY. AoIR Selected Papers of Internet Research. https://doi.org/10.5210/spir. v2024i0.13983

Levido, . A., Dezuanni, M., Woods, A., Leaver, T., Rodriguez, A., MacKenzie, J., … Scott, F. (2025). THE DIGITAL CHILDHOOD INDUSTRY. AoIR Selected Papers of Internet Research. https://doi. org/10.5210/spir.v2024i0.14092

Murcia, K., Cross, E., and Mennell, S., 2024, The Children’s Technology Cove: A living lab fostering innovation and connecting research with industry and the wider community, AARE Conference, Sydney, December 1-5

Vella, K., Brereton, M., Rogers, Y et al, 2024, Nature Networks: Designing for nature data collection and sharing from local to global, ACM Designing Interactive Systems Conference 2024 Copenhagen, Denmark July 1-5

Zhao, . X., Ng, R., Zomer, C., Duffy, G., & Sefton-Green, J. (2025). RESEARCHING THE EDTECH INDUSTRY FOR CHILDREN: METHODOLOGICAL REFLECTIONS ON A DESIGN-BASED APPROACH. AoIR Selected Papers of Internet Research. https://doi.org/10.5210/ spir.v2024i0.14080

Journal Articles

Apps, T., Beckman, K., Ng, R., (2024) Datafied by default: Examining the intersect between children’s digital rights and education, Computers and Education Open, 10.1016/j.caeo.2024.100237

Baldry, Moya Kate, Happa, Jassim, Steed, Anthony, Smith, Simon, and Glencross, Mashhuda (2024). From Embodied Abuse to Mass Disruption : Generative, Inter-Reality Threats in Social, Mixed-Reality Platforms. Digital Threats: Research and Practice . https://doi.org/10.1145/3696015

Beckman, K., Apps, T. & Bennett, S. (2024). Schoolfeeds: A study of principals’ governance of school social media pages and students’ data, privacy and treatment, Computers & Education Open, https://doi. org/10.1016/j.caeo.2024.100213

Berg V, Arabiat D, Morelius E, Kervin L, Zgambo M, Robinson S, Jenkins M, Whitehead L, 2024, Young Children and the Creation of a Digital Identity on Social Networking Sites: Scoping Review, JMIR Pediatr Parent;7:e54414, doi: 10.2196/54414

Beynon A, Hendry D, Lund Rasmussen C, Rohl AL, Eynon R, Thomas G, Stearne S, Campbell A, Harris C, Zabatiero J, et al. 2024, Measurement Method Options to Investigate Digital Screen Technology Use by Children

and Adolescents: A Narrative Review. Children, 11(7):754. https://doi. org/10.3390/children11070754

Beynon AM, Straker LM, Lund Rasmussen C, Hendry D, Stearne SM, Zubrick SR, Jongeling B, Harris C, Silva D, Zabatiero J. Influence of maternal and infant technology use and other family factors on infant development. BMC Pediatr. 2024 Oct 30;24(1):690. doi: 10.1186/s12887-024-05165-4. PMID: 39478500; PMCID: PMC11524025.

Bunn, A., and Dobson, M., (2024), Exploring researchers’ perspectives and experiences of digital childhoods research in schools.” Computers and Education Open (Special Issue: Datified by Default), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.caeo.2024.100186

Bunn, A., Dobson, M., 2024, Exploring researchers’ perspectives and experiences of digital childhoods research in schools, Computers and Education Open, Volume 6, https://doi.org/10.1016/j. caeo.2024.100186

Chu,C, Paatsch, L, Kervin, L, Edwards, S., 2024, Digital play in the early years: A systematic review, International Journal of ChildComputer Interaction, Volume 40, 100652, ISSN 2212-8689, https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.ijcci.2024.100652.

Coulter, N., Garcia-Gomez, D. C., Healy, S., Jeong, H.-S., Mauk, M., Sheppard, L. C., Willett, R., & Zhao, X. “Andy.” (2024). Family Media Practices in a Post-Pandemic Future: Conversations From a Transglobal Research Project. Children & Society. https://doi. org/10.1111/chso.12931

Hendry D, Straker L, Bourne B, Coshan S, Kumwembe N, McCarthy C, et al. Parental practices and perspectives on health and digital technology use information seeking for children aged 0–36 months. Health Promot J Austral. 2024; 35(4): 1174–1183. https://doi. org/10.1002/hpja.849

Hood, R., Zabatiero, J., Silva, D., Zubrick, S. R., & Straker, L. (2023). “It helps and it doesn’t help”: maternal perspectives on how the use of smartphones and tablet computers influences parent-infant attachment. Ergonomics, 67(2), 148–167. https://doi.org/10.1080/00 140139.2023.2212148

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KPIs

Key Performance Indicators

KPI-2

KPI-5

KPI-9 9.

The Digital Child investigates children’s use of digital technologies and produces evidence-based resources that support young children growing up in a digital world.

digitalchild.org.au