This isn’t just about tech policy — it’s about cultural power, moral authority, and the future of digital freedom.
Read the full piece here:
🔗 theconversation.com/as-social-me...
@youthrights.bsky.social @digitalfreedom.bsky.social #digitalculture #ADHD @digitalchildau.bsky.social
We need to ask:
Who gets to decide what “safe” digital life looks like?
Whose values are being protected?
And what kinds of youth expression are being silenced in the name of care?
But banning platforms doesn’t eliminate risk. It may push youth toward less regulated, more opaque corners of the internet — where surveillance is lower, but harm can be higher.
Like Victorian-era reforms, today’s restrictions are driven by a desire to restore order, discipline, and innocence — especially around how young people communicate, express emotion, and form relationships online.
These policies often frame youth screen time as a threat to mental health, attention, and social development. But beneath the surface is a deeper anxiety: that digital life is eroding traditional values and norms.
🚨 New article out in @theconversation.com:
As age restrictions on social media spread globally, we may be witnessing the rise of a Victorian internet — one shaped by moral panic, not just child protection.
🔗 theconversation.com/as-social-me...
🌀 Feeling nostalgic for the landline era? I had the pleasure of sharing my thoughts in this Capsule NZ piece on why Gen Z (and some of us millennials!) are craving media with boundaries. 📞
Read the full article here: capsulenz.com/be/parenting...
🚫📱 Banning social media for under-16s in NZ isn't the solution! In this article I suggest 10 reasons why it shouldn't happen theconversation.com/10-reasons-w...
Done! Co-governance fear-mongering from the organized right is misguided. As a recipient of @internetnz.bsky.social funding, I can say firsthand: there's nothing to fear. In fact, #TeTiriti strengthened my research and made it better.
Pleased to share that my first article about ADHD and screen time has been published: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Did AI help co-write your grant application? Do you use CoPilot to brainstorm ideas? Or Chat GPT to edit your writing? How about Otter to automate transcriptions? And how else are we automating aspects of qualitative research? Come tell us and contribute to this special issue!!
CFP! I'm co-editing this special issue in QRIP. Our aim is to generate critical discussion regarding the impact of AI on the ontology, epistemology, and methodology underpinning qualitative research in the social sciences think.taylorandfrancis.com/special_issu...
Back at work this week. Feeling annoyed I only just discovered this gem of an out of office service after the summer hols! www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbfD...
Seems like the current New Zealand government doesn’t even want overseas funders to fund the country’s humanities and social sciences researchers instead of them.
Vision Wellington's 'back to basics' approach isn't neutral—it's a pro-business, anti-climate action, right-wing agenda. Most concerning its exploiting its privileged access to the public sphere
www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/3605...
First time puarangi / hibiscus richardsonii is flowering in our garden 😊
She’s threatened by your research. A badge of honour?
At a time when the NZ government making concerted attempts to defund social sciences and humanities in favour of a few physical sciences alone, I particularly appreciate this ‘airline safety video’ pitch from Bryony James of VUW
Downstream effect of the Marsden cuts: a lot of the fixed term teaching contracts I've been able to pick up have been buy-outs funded via humanities or socsci Marsdens - as well as being devastating for ECR and mid-career academics, this also means a path for the most junior evaporates too
Thanks Dan (and good to see you at AANCZ) - it shouldn’t be a surprise but it still is unsettling😔
As a scientist who has a Marsden through the social sciences panel this is so so so fucked up. It will have massive implications for Māori research being funded.
Appalling news & a sad day for research funding in NZ. There were some amazing humanities and social sciences projects that were funded this year that will each change the world in their own unique way www.royalsociety.org.nz/what-we-do/f...
This is so small minded
@binarythis.bsky.social have you ever considered this? Still remember my tarot reading at AOIR2019!!
Thank you! That means a lot 😃 I can’t wait to get stuck in!!
Such important scholarship!
Swimming in Wellington?!
Everytime I hear riroriro i get transported back in time! The birdsong of my youth
Such a good #AANZCA conference at RMIT!! Thank you to @dbossio.bsky.social @jammh.bsky.social @dhutchman.bsky.social for organising and @katemannell.bsky.social your #digitalchild research. Stoked to share my early research on ADHD and screen time
