Kate Mannell

Loot boxes are still rife in kids’ mobile games, despite ban on ‘gambling-like’ features Games with ‘loot boxes’ should be classified for over-15s – but a new study shows many of the most popular mobile games completely ignore the rules.

New article in @theconversation.com today reflecting on Australia’s 2024 loot box regulations and how, 1 year later, there remains widespread non-compliance - and generally really confusing age ratings for mobile games on the App Stores!

theconversation.com/loot-boxes-a...

Are you a PhD student whose work investigates digital technology in contexts of teaching and learning? Apply for our symposium! We are primarily seeking in-person presenters but have limited online slots available if you can't make it to Melbourne. More info: redi.deakin.edu.au/2025/09/call...

Just a week to go until this wonderful event, hosted by my colleague Katrin Langton. Join us online or in-person. See link for registration.

Luxon himself handed me the Prime Minister's science prize last year. Let me say this in plain English: he's an idiot for running a govt who budgeted more for AI than for the Marsden fund. any journo reading this can quote me on it #nzpol

—Carry a notebook everywhere.
—Print drafts out and edit by hand.
—Read all the books remotely like the one you're trying to write and a bunch that are completely unrelated but which might help with form, tone or style.
—Write all the words your damn self.

weather modelling remodelling the weather; bill murray put on blast by a gramophone; tiktok demanding your baby has more tummy time; all of Shrek in one gif - and that's just the morning keynote session! #AusSTS25 #signalsandnoises 📶

Testing out some new ideas with the lovely folks of #AusSTS25

Looking forward to being part of this panel next week –– come along or tune in online

People are seemingly accidentally publishing their AI chat histories with Meta's new AI app Information about medical conditions, intimate confessions, sensitive requests and horny image generation requests are all visible on Meta's new Discover feed.

not sure why everyone today is discovering this but i reported a month ago about how Meta's new AI's social feed was filled with people seemingly accidentally publicly sharing their private AI chats www.crikey.com.au/20...

Hey #ica25, The Australian Internet Observatory @internetobservatory.org.au is new national research infrastructure supporting researchers working in diverse digital platform research areas. For a glimpse into the planned capabilities: internetobservatory.net.au

We’re delighted to be presenting our panel at #AoIR2025: Rupturing Digital Childhoods and Parenting in Australia? Social Media Bans, Privacy, Screen Time, and Generative AI Featuring the papers: On Board the Social Media “Ban Wagon”: Regulatory Theatre, The Public Child and the Hyper-Enthusiastic State’ By Amanda Third (Western Sydney University) “I Probably Should Be Concerned, But I’m Really Not” – Concepts, Concerns and Contradictions in New Parents’ Approaches to Negotiating their Children’s Data Privacy By Katrin Langton (Deakin University) Navigating Talk About Kids and Tech: Ruptures in and Through Screen Time Discourse By Kate Mannell (Deakin University) Generative imaginaries? How Generative AI tools Visualise Children, Families, and Australianness By Tama Leaver & Suzanne Srdarov (Curtin University)

Really chuffed our panel "Rupturing Digital Childhoods and Parenting in Australia? Social Media Bans, Privacy, Screen Time, and Generative AI" featuring Amanda Third, @katlangton.bsky.social, @katemannell.bsky.social, @suzesrdarov.bsky.social and me has been accepted for #AoIR2025!

See you in 🇧🇷 !

A Real World Rip-off - Glass Dear fellow QUT students, Queensland University of Technology is selling you the dream and pocketing the profits, and no one seems to be talking about it. While you’re cramming assignments between shi...

Interesting editorial from my university's student guild newspaper's editorial team www.qutglass.com/a-real-world...

Surveillance on Exhibit: Using Problematic Technology To Teach About Problematic Technology | Proceedings of the 2025 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

🚨 New Pub! 🚨 Our augmented reality museum installation about data surveillance & rights in Aotearoa NZ used by 128,000x visitors over 2 yrs — we interviewed visitors & present conclusions on how to get the public thinking about problematic technologies!

doi.org/10.1145/3706...

#OpenAccess #chi2025

Congrats Kat! Wonderful to see this work out in the world

Has anyone done or seen any work on the dating app Raya? I have a student who wants to do her verification case study on it, but she (nor I) can find any work on it.

Very understandable

Not yet! I think you mentioned her to me years ago when she was still deciding where to go for the PhD. I figured out that she landed at Curtin and am looking forward to us joining all the dots whenever we finally meet. I'm still in Melbourne and only head to Perth occasionally.

Trump uni questionnaire 'verges on foreign interference', Go8 leader says Donald Trump's "America First" agenda hits Australian universities, with at least six reporting funding cuts or pauses under the new administration.

Yes and not just conferences –– research funding is being paused or cut outside the US too www.abc.net.au/news/2025-03...

The Kids Are Online by Ysabel Gerrard - Paper Scholarship is a powerful tool for changing how people think, plan, and govern. By giving voice to bright minds and bold ideas, we seek to foster understanding and drive progressive change.

It’s publication day for The Kids Are Online!!! 🥰 www.ucpress.edu/books/the-ki...

Congrats Ysabel!! Loved hearing you talk about this work last year. Happy to see it out in the world!

Bowel screening change 'totally unethical' | E-Tangata “We’re going to be left with people who go: ‘You know what, my uncle or my brother or my cousin died from bowel cancer. And it should have been picked up in a screening programme.’ Make no mistake, th...

The NZ government has no conception of the difference between treating people equally and treating people equitably. e-tangata.co.nz/comment-and-...

A week to go until submissions close! Really looking forward to speaking at this – the program looks excellent so far and it's a great group of convenors. If you're considering submitting but feeling shy feel free to DM me

This article also serves as a kind of conceptual companion to my recently funded ARC DECRA on 'influencer journalists'. Can't wait to start this amazing 3-year project next year!!

On Day 1 a keynote panel at the NCM on infrastructures of noise with Dang Nguyen (RMIT) @digitaldang.bsky.social, Ranjodh Dhaliwal (University of Basel) @ranjodhdhaliwal.com, Kate Mannell (Deakin) @katemannell.bsky.social and Fabian Offert (UC Santa Barbara) @zentralwerkstatt.org 2/

The AusSTS 2025 cfp is closing soon - please get your ‘Signals and Noises’ in by Friday 14 March! It’s shaping up to be an amazing few days in Narrm across the National Communication Museum and Deakin Downtown, and we'll be welcoming some amazing keynote speakers and contributors, including... 1/

I get in Wednesday morning and leave Friday evening. Will email you with a few options!

Informal digital peer support for mental health: understanding the digital support practices of LGBTQ+ young people in Australia This paper offers an analysis of informal digital peer support among LGBTQ+ young people in Australia, based on survey data from 660 young people (aged 16-25). Research on LGBTQ+ young people’s men...

New paper from me and Lisa McDaid: "Informal digital peer support for mental health: understanding the digital support practices of LGBTQ+ young people in Australia" www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Looking forward to presenting at this next week. You can attend in person or online for free

You should share this! Can you make it a read-only google doc?

It's working now :)