Journal articles on the topic 'Electronic books. Parenting Parent and child. Child development'

Various self-regulated learning (SRL) problems often occur in early childhood during the transition from pre-school to elementary school. The ability to self-regulated learning is im- portant for school readiness and success throughout life, requiring the ability of parents to encourage the development of these abilities. The purpose of this study is to develop childcare strategies on self-regulation, such as children's ability to regulate metacognition, motivation and behavior to re- duce problems. Research produces certain products and tests their effectiveness. Respondents in- volved parents from 18 districts in 9 cities in the technique of data analysis using quantitative and qualitative approaches. The results showed differences in the average scores of children's independ- ent learning both before and after parents learned and applied the contents of the manual book. The result of the effectiveness test is sig = 0,000 <α = 0.05. So, H0 is rejected, and the results of the chi- square test sig = 0,000 <0.05, then H0 is rejected. In conclusion, parenting strategies using manuals so that parents can improve competencies such as parents' knowledge, attitudes and skills, and prove effective in increasing children's independent learning. Keywords: Early Childhood, Parenting strategy, Self-regulated learning References Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall. Ben-Eliyahu, A. (2019). Academic Emotional Learning: A Critical Component of Self-Regulated Learning in the Emotional Learning Cycle. Educational Psychologist, 54(2), 84–105. https://doi.org/10.1080/00461520.2019.1582345 Bergen, D., & Davis, D. (2011). Influences of Technology-Related Playful Activity and Thought on Moral Development. American Journal of Play, 4(1), 80–99. Retrieved from http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ985549 Bjorklund, F, D. (2012). Children’s Thinking: Cognitive Development and Individual Differences. USA: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning. Borg, W. R., & Gall, M. D. (1989). Educational research. New York: Longman. Bronson, M. B. (2000). Self-regulation in early childhood. New York: The Guilford Press. Carlton, M. P., & Winsler, A. (1998). Fostering intrinsic motivation in early childhood classrooms. Early Childhood Education Journal, 25(3), 159–166. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1025601110383 Daniel, G. R., Wang, C., & Berthelsen, D. (2016). Early school-based parent involvement, children’s self-regulated learning and academic achievement: An Australian longitudinal study. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 36, 168–177. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2015.12.016 Dick, W., & Carey, L. (2009). The Systematic Design of Instruction. New Jersey: Pearson Education. Jacob, L., Dörrenbächer, S., & Perels, F. (2019). A pilot study of the online assessment of self- regulated learning in preschool children: Development of a direct, quantitative measurement tool. International Electronic Journal of Elementary Education, 12(2), 115–126. https://doi.org/10.26822/iejee.2019257655 Jeong, J., & Frye, D. (2020). Self-regulated learning: Is understanding learning a first step? Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 50, 17–27. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2018.12.007 Jittaseno, P., & Varma S, P. (2017). Influence of Parenting Styles on Self-Regulated Learning Behavior Mediated By Self-Efficacy and Intrinsic Value. University of Thailand Journals, (March), 44–62. https://doi.org/https://www.researchgate.net/publication/315458200 Morawska, A., Dittman, C. K., & Rusby, J. C. (2019). Promoting Self-Regulation in Young Children: The Role of Parenting Interventions. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, 22(1), 43–51. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10567-019-00281-5 Oppong, E., Shore, B. M., & Muis, K. R. (2019). Clarifying the Connections Among Giftedness, Metacognition, Self-Regulation, and Self-Regulated Learning: Implications for Theory and Practice. Gifted Child Quarterly, 63(2), 102–119. https://doi.org/10.1177/0016986218814008 Ormrod, J. E. (2009). Psikologi Pendidikan Membantu Siswa Tumbuh dan Berkembang (6th editio). Jakarta: Erlangga. Perels, F., Merget-kullmann, M., Wende, M., Schmitz, B., & Buchbinder, C. (2009). The British Psychological Society Improving self-regulated learning of preschool children : Evaluation of training for kindergarten teachers. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 79, 311– 327. https://doi.org/10.1348/000709908X322875 Sanders, M. R., Turner, K. M. T., & Metzler, C. W. (2019). Applying Self-Regulation Principles in the Delivery of Parenting Interventions. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, 22(1), 24–42. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10567-019-00287-z Schunk, H. ., & Pintrich, P. R. (2008). Motivational In Education: Theory, Research, and Application. Ohio: Pearson. Seroussi, D. E., & Yaffe, Y. (2020). Links Between Israeli College Students’ Self-Regulated Learning and Their Recollections of Their Parents’ Parenting Styles. SAGE Open, 10(1). https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244019899096 Sugiyono. (2013). Metode Penelitian Pendidikan (Pendekatan Kuantitatif, Kualitatif dan R & D. Bandung. Thomas, V., De Backer, F., Peeters, J., & Lombaerts, K. (2019). Parental involvement and adolescent school achievement: the mediational role of self-regulated learning. Learning Environments Research, 22(3), 345–363. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10984-019-09278-x Thomas, V., Muls, J., De Backer, F., & Lombaerts, K. (2019). Exploring self-regulated learning during middle school: views of parents and students on parents’ educational support at home. Journal of Family Studies, 9400. https://doi.org/10.1080/13229400.2018.1562359 Tiniakou, E. (2017). Patterns of parenting in the life histories of highly self-regulated learners (Universiteit Twente). Retrieved from http://essay.utwente.nl/73234/ Tiniakou, E., Hirschler, T., Endedijk, M. D., & Margaryan, A. (2018). Becoming self-regulated: Patterns of parenting in the lives of professionals who are highly self-regulated learners. Journal of Self-Regulation and Regulation, 4(0), 7–42. https://doi.org/10.11588/JOSAR.2018.0.49364 Tobias, S., & Everson, H. (2000). Assessing Metacognitive Knowledge Monitoring. Report No. 96-01. College Entrance Examination Board, (96). Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=ED562584&site=ehost -live Veenman, M. V. J., Van Hout-Wolters, B. H. A. M., & Afflerbach, P. (2006). Metacognition and learning: Conceptual and methodological considerations. Metacognition and Learning, 1(1), 3–14. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11409-006-6893-0 Venitz, L., & Perels, F. (2019). Promoting self-regulated learning of preschoolers through indirect intervention: a two-level approach. Journal of Family Studies, 9400(13), 2057–2070. https://doi.org/10.1080/03004430.2018.1434518 Vygotsky, L. (1978). Interaction between learning and development (In M. Gauv). New York: Scientific American Books. Whitebread, D., Coltman, P., Pasternak, D. P., Sangster, C., Grau, V., Bingham, S., ... Demetriou, D. (2009). The development of two observational tools for assessing metacognition and self- regulated learning in young children. Metacognition and Learning, 4(1), 63–85. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11409-008-9033-1 Wolters, C. A. (2003). Conceptualizing the Role and Influence of Student- Teacher Relationships on Children ’ s Social and Cognitive Development. Educational Psychologist, 38(4), 207– 234. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15326985EP3804 Zimmerman, B. J. (2010). Self-Regulated Learning and Academic Achievement: An Overview. Educational Psychologist, 25(1), 3–17. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15326985ep2501

Physical activity is very important for early childhood, especially outdoor activities that add a lot of new experiences. This study aims to check the relationship of children's outdoor activities and parenting styles and children's social skills. The participants are 125 parents of early childhood who attend kindergarten. The research method is a descriptive study using the relational screening model. The results showed that there was a relationship between outside play and parenting style on the social skills of children in their childhood. Democratic parenting styles are found to promote children's social skills, while authoritative parenting styles have a negative correlation with interpersonal skills, the ability to express verbally, self-control, listening skills, emotional management and adaptation to change. In the sub-dimensions of anger management and adaptation to changing skills is a significant difference between authoritative parenting styles and not permissive parenting with children's social skills. Keywords: Early Childhood Social skills, Outdoor Activities, Parenting Styles Reference: Azlina, W., & S., Z. A. (2012). A Pilot Study: The Impact of Outdoor Play Spaces on Kindergarten Children. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 38(December 2010), 275–283. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.03.349 Bento, G., & Dias, G. (2017). The importance of outdoor play for young childrenʼs healthy development. Porto Biomedical Journal, 2(5), 157–160. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pbj.2017.03.003 Beyer, K., Bizub, J., Szabo, A., Heller, B., Kistner, A., Shawgo, E., & Zetts, C. (2015). Development and validation of the attitudes toward outdoor play scales for children. Social Science and Medicine, 133, 253–260. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2014.10.033 Boxberger, K., & Reimers, A. K. (2019). Parental correlates of outdoor play in boys and girls aged 0 to 12—A systematic review. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 16(2). https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16020190 Coleman, W. L., & Lindsay, R. L. (1992). Interpersonal disabilities: Social skill deficits in older children and adolescents: Their description, assessment, and management. Pediatric Clinics of North America, 39(3), 551–567. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0031-3955(16)38344-4 Cui, M., Janhonen-Abruquah, H., Darling, C. A., Carlos Chavez, F. L., & Palojoki, P. (2019). Helicopter Parenting and Young Adults’ Well-Being: A Comparison Between United States and Finland. Cross-Cultural Research, 53(4), 410–427. https://doi.org/10.1177/1069397118802253 Fjørtoft, I., & Sageie, J. (2000). The natural environment as a playground for children. Landscape description and analyses of a natural playscape. Landscape and Urban Planning, 48(1–2), 83–97. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0169-2046(00)00045-1 Ghanbari-Azarneir, S., Anbari, S., Hosseini, S.-B., & Yazdanfar, S.-A. (2015). Identification of Child-friendly Environments in Poor Neighborhoods. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 201(February), 19–29. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.08.114 Giedd, J. N. (2012). The Digital Revolution and Adolescent Brain Evolution. Journal of Adolescent Health, 51(2), 101–105. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2012.06.002 Hinkley, T., Brown, H., Carson, V., & Teychenne, M. (2018). Cross sectional associations of screen time and outdoor play with social skills in preschool children. PLoS ONE, 13(4), 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1371 Johnson, J. E., & Christie, J. F. (2009). Play and digital media. Computers in the Schools, 26(4), 284–289. https://doi.org/10.1080/07380560903360202 Junot, A., Paquet, Y., & Martin-Krumm, C. (2017). Passion for outdoor activities and environmental behaviors: A look at emotions related to passionate activities. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 53, 177–184. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2017.07.011 Kemple, K. M., Oh, J. H., Kenney, E., & Smith-Bonahue, T. (2016). The Power of Outdoor Play and Play in Natural Environments. Childhood Education, 92(6), 446–454. https://doi.org/10.1080/00094056.2016.1251793 Kol, S. (2016). The Effects of the Parenting Styles on Social Skills of Children Aged 5-6. Malaysian Online Journal of Educational Sciences, 4(2), 49–58. Kozina, Z., Repko, O., Kozin, S., Kostyrko, A., Yermakova, T., & Goncharenko, V. (2016). Motor skills formation technique in 6 to 7-year-old children based on their psychological and physical features (Rock climbing as an example). Journal of Physical Education and Sport, 16(3), 866–874. https://doi.org/10.7752/jpes.2016.03137 Larson, L. R., Szczytko, R., Bowers, E. P., Stephens, L. E., Stevenson, K. T., & Floyd, M. F. (2019). Outdoor Time, Screen Time, and Connection to Nature: Troubling Trends Among Rural Youth? Environment and Behavior, 51(8), 966–991. https://doi.org/10.1177/0013916518806686 Lindsey, G., Maraj, M., & Kuan, S. C. (2001). Access, Equity, and Urban Greenways: An Exploratory Investigation. Professional Geographer, 53(3), 332–346. https://doi.org/10.1111/0033-0124.00288 Louv, R. (2008). Last child in the woods: Saving our children from nature-deficit disorder. Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books. Maynard, T., & Waters, J. (2007). Learning in the outdoor environment: A missed opportunity? Early Years, 27(3), 255–265. https://doi.org/10.1080/09575140701594400 Moreland, A. D., & McRae-Clark, A. (2018). Parenting outcomes of parenting interventions in integrated substance-use treatment programs: A systematic review. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, 89(August 2017), 52–59. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsat.2018.03.005 Moriguchi, Y., Zelazo, P. D., & Chevalier, N. (2016). Development of Executive Function During Childhood. https://doi.org/10.3389/978-2-88919-800-9 Mullenbach, L. E., Andrejewski, R. G., & Mowen, A. J. (2019). Connecting children to nature through residential outdoor environmental education. Environmental Education Research, 25(3), 365–374. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504622.2018.1458215 Norðdahl, K., & Einarsdóttir, J. (2015). Children’s views and preferences regarding their outdoor environment. Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor Learning, 15(2), 152–167. https://doi.org/10.1080/14729679.2014.896746 Pinquart, M. (2016). Associations of Parenting Styles and Dimensions with Academic Achievement in Children and Adolescents: A Meta-analysis. Educational Psychology Review, 28(3), 475–493. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-015-9338-y Riany, Y. E., Cuskelly, M., & Meredith, P. (2016). Cultural Beliefs about Autism in Indonesia. International Journal of Disability, Development and Education, 63(6), 623–640. https://doi.org/10.1080/1034912X.2016.1142069 Riany, Y. E., Meredith, P., & Cuskelly, M. (2017). Understanding the Influence of Traditional Cultural Values on Indonesian Parenting. Marriage and Family Review, 53(3), 207–226. https://doi.org/10.1080/01494929.2016.1157561 Saltali, N. D., & Arslan, E. (2012). Parent ’ s Attitudes as a Predictor of Preschoolers ’ Social Competence and Introverted Behavior. Elementary Education Online, 11(3), 729–737. Schoeppe, S., Vandelanotte, C., Bere, E., Lien, N., Verloigne, M., Kovács, É., … Van Lippevelde, W. (2017). The influence of parental modelling on children’s physical activity and screen time: Does it differ by gender? European Journal of Public Health, 27(1), 152–157. https://doi.org/10.1093/eurpub/ckw182 Shi, Y. (2017). Explore Children’s Outdoor Play Spaces of Community Areas in High-density Cities in China: Wuhan as an Example. Procedia Engineering, 198(September 2016), 654–682. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.proeng.2017.07.118 Strasburger, V. C., Jordan, A. B., & Donnerstein, E. (2012). Children, Adolescents, and the Media:. Health Effects. Pediatric Clinics of North America, 59(3), 533–587. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pcl.2012.03.025 Victoria J. Rideout, Foehr, M. A. U. G., & Roberts, D. F. (2010). GENERATION M2 Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds. In Theresa Boston (Ed.), Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Boston: Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Wang, S. hua, Zhang, Y., & Baillargeon, R. (2016). Young infants view physically possible support events as unexpected: New evidence for rule learning. Cognition, 157, 100–105. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2016.08.021 Waters, J., & Rekers, A. (2019). Young Children ’ s Outdoor Play-Based Learning. 1–7. Webster-Stratton, C., Reid, J., & Hammond, M. (2001). Social skills and problem-solving training for children with early-onset conduct problems: Who benefits? Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines, 42(7), 943–952. Retrieved from http://ovidsp.ovid.com/ovidweb.cgi?T=JS&PAGE=reference&D=emed5&NEWS=N&AN=2001380196 Wilkie, H. J., Standage, M., Gillison, F. B., Cumming, S. P., & Katzmarzyk, P. T. (2018). The home electronic media environment and parental safety concerns: relationships with outdoor time after school and over the weekend among 9-11 year old children. BMC Public Health, 18(1), 456. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-018-5382-0 Zajenkowska, A., Jankowski, K. S., Lawrence, C., & Zajenkowski, M. (2013). Personality and individual differences in responses to aggression triggering events among prisoners and non-prisoners. Personality and Individual Differences, 55(8), 947–951. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2013.07.467

Objectives: To scope evaluations of Indigenous parenting programs designed to improve child psychosocial outcomes. Methods: Electronic databases, gray literature, Indigenous websites and journals, and reference lists were searched. The search was restricted to high-income countries with a history of colonialism. Results: Sixteen studies describing evaluations of 13 programs were found. Most were controlled studies from United States and Australia, targeting child social, emotional, behavioral and mental health outcomes, and these were delivered to groups of parents. Program content focused most often on child development and learning, child behavior management, and parent–child interactions. Some studies reported improvements in child and parent outcomes, though the majority used self-report measures and some were noncontrolled studies. Conclusions: This scoping review provides the first known map of evaluations of programs targeting parents of Indigenous children. There were few rigorous evaluations of effectiveness. A rigorous systematic review is needed to evaluate the strength and extent of these findings.

The present study examines associations between parents’ involvement in an enhanced storytime program and parenting knowledge and efficacy for supporting their child’s socioemotional development and book reading. Books Can…© was developed by a public library to teach parents important child development information and strategies for supporting their child’s socioemotional learning. Parents and their young children participated in a 6-week interactive program that included book reading, songs, interactive activities, and parenting tips. Parents (n =119) completed questionnaires both prior to and after participating in the program. Multilevel general linear models compared responses to survey items before and after the program, indicating significant increases in parent knowledge, attitudes, and reading behavior by the end of the program. This study provides preliminary support documenting the benefits of the Books Can…© program. Moreover, results highlight public libraries and enhanced storytime programs as meaningful settings for promoting family involvement in children’s early learning.

The family is the first educational environment for children, because in this environment the child first gets education and guidance from both parents. Education in the family does not have the curriculum as usual as in schools in general, the family environment is believed to be a strong foundation for children's education, because children are born and raised in the family environment. Therefore, it is a good time to instill the values ​​of character, character, and good behavior from parents to their children. Thus it is clear that the first and foremost person responsible (parenting) for the survival and education of children is the parent. The family environment must give full role to the development of the family to provide a comprehensive and sustainable education system. Parents (parents) must provide for both biological and psycholytic needs for their children, and educate and guide in religious spiritual life so that children become resilient and can live in the midst of society. There are still parents who only understand part of the responsibility for raising children in the family. Therefore, it is very important for parents to understand and have the principles or the right way to educate and guide and raise children in the family in the middle of the Information Technology Gereration 5.0 community that is "real time access" in electronic transactions that operate with speed and high accuracy.

AimsTo conduct a systematic review of reviews to investigate how military deployment of a parent affects his/her child, and the extent to which the child's own perspectives have been documented.BackgroundLengthy but finite disruptions to parenting in any form may affect child development and mental and physical health.Military deployment means weeks or months of separation from one parent.2016 figures for the U.S. military showed that 40.5% of military personnel have children, and of these 1.7 million children the largest percentage are aged between 0–5 years (37.8%).MethodSeven databases were searched: AMED, Web of Science, Scopus, EMBASE 1947, Joanna Briggs Institute EMP database, Ovid MEDLINE 1946 and PsycINFO 1806 from the inception of each electronic database until 31st March 2018.Inclusion criteria:Child and young adults aged 0–24 yearsEnglish language papers onlyAll papers being systematic reviews or meta-analysesA focus on documenting the effects on child outcomesData extracted included the review methods and child outcomes reported, including educational attainment; physical symptoms; mental illnesses or disorders; changes to behaviours, and effects on peer and parental relationships.ResultThe eight reviews identified included 32 common and relevant studies.Across the various studies, only about 20% of data came directly from children.Five papers extracted from the reviews identified parental deployment as having a negative effect on school attainment.Nine studies extracted from the review papers found a positive correlation between having a deployed parent and a greater chance of experiencing depressive symptoms and feelings of anxiety.Strong correlations of increased prevalence of both externalising & internalising behaviours were conclusively found in 7 of the reviews.Increased resilience was detailed in only one study featured in multiple reviews.Just one study featured across the reviews reported on physiological measures - adolescents with deployed parents had higher blood pressures and significantly higher heart rates and stress scores than civilian children.ConclusionMore research obtaining the viewpoint of the child directly and observation of such children is required to properly understand the effects on children with a deployed parent, without the interference of parent or teacher reporting bias. Additionally, with only one study reporting on increased offspring resilience there has been limited exploration of potential positive correlates, so further research regarding these is important.

Background Latinx families are among the highest users of smartphones, yet few health-focused Web programs have been developed for this audience. Parent-based smartphone apps designed for Latinx families may help increase access to evidence-informed parenting programming and ultimately reduce health disparities among children and adolescents. To maximize uptake of such apps, the Center for eHealth Research and Disease Management (CeHRes) Roadmap for electronic health (eHealth) development recommends 5 phases of development: (1) contextual inquiry, (2) value specification, (3) design, (4) operationalization, and (5) evaluation. Objective Guided by the CeHRes Roadmap, our objective was to apply a community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach to mobile app development. We present a formative evaluation to inform the design of an eHealth mobile app for Latinx parents of adolescents based on a face-to-face parenting program, Padres Informados/Jovenes Preparados (PIJP). Methods Community participants in the process included Latinx parents and stakeholders. We conducted a parent survey (N=115) and interviews (N=20) to understand the context and obtain feedback on a mockup and prototype of the app, facilitator workshops to streamline content, and stakeholder interviews (N=4) to discuss values and app requirements. Results We report results from the first 3 phases of the CeHRes Roadmap. In the survey, 96.5% (111/115) of parents reported they had access to a cell phone, 85.6% (89/104) reported they would use a parenting app in the next month if they had access, and 80.2% (89/111) reported intentions to use a stress reduction app. Parents reported that setting goals about parenting and tracking those goals were important potential features of an app. In logistic regression analyses, technology attitudes and barriers were not related to parent’s intentions to use a parenting mobile app (95% CI 0.51-1.17 and 95% CI 0.28-2.12, respectively). Qualitative interviews confirmed Latinx parents’ technology engagement and desire for education and child development information online. Stakeholder interviews identified 3 community values: familism, the promotion of adolescent health, and delivery of economic value. Community stakeholders participated in defining the mobile app requirements. On the basis of community and parent input, the mobile app prototype was designed with 3 sections: (1) 8 modules of video-based parenting skills instruction with content from the face-to-face PIJP program, (2) breath rate information from a wearable device to support awareness of stress levels that could affect parenting, and (3) goal setting and tracking capacities. Conclusions The findings of this study highlight the utility of an iterative, participatory design process. The CBPR approach and community collaboration enhanced the CeHRes Roadmap by promoting power sharing, facilitating recruitment, and building trust among community members. Experiences applying community research to the initial 3 phases of the CeHRes Roadmap in a Latinx community are discussed, along with plans for the 2 final phases.

Background Parents’ use of mobile technologies may interfere with important parent-child interactions that are critical to healthy child development. This phenomenon is known as technoference. However, little is known about the population-wide awareness of this problem and the acceptability of artificial intelligence (AI)–based tools that help with mitigating technoference. Objective This study aims to assess parents’ awareness of technoference and its harms, the acceptability of AI tools for mitigating technoference, and how each of these constructs vary across sociodemographic factors. Methods We administered a web-based survey to a nationally representative sample of parents of children aged ≤5 years. Parents’ perceptions that their own technology use had risen to potentially problematic levels in general, their perceptions of their own parenting technoference, and the degree to which they found AI tools for mitigating technoference acceptable were assessed by using adaptations of previously validated scales. Multiple regression and mediation analyses were used to assess the relationships between these scales and each of the 6 sociodemographic factors (parent age, sex, language, ethnicity, educational attainment, and family income). Results Of the 305 respondents, 280 provided data that met the established standards for analysis. Parents reported that a mean of 3.03 devices (SD 2.07) interfered daily in their interactions with their child. Almost two-thirds of the parents agreed with the statements “I am worried about the impact of my mobile electronic device use on my child” and “Using a computer-assisted coach while caring for my child would help me notice more quickly when my device use is interfering with my caregiving” (187/281, 66.5% and 184/282, 65.1%, respectively). Younger age, Hispanic ethnicity, and Spanish language spoken at home were associated with increased technoference awareness. Compared to parents’ perceived technoference and sociodemographic factors, parents’ perceptions of their own problematic technology use was the factor that was most associated with the acceptance of AI tools. Conclusions Parents reported high levels of mobile device use and technoference around their youngest children. Most parents across a wide sociodemographic spectrum, especially younger parents, found the use of AI tools to help mitigate technoference during parent-child daily interaction acceptable and useful.

AbstractAdolescent (10–19 years) mental health remains an overlooked global health issue. Rates of adolescent pregnancy within sub-Saharan Africa are some of the highest in the world and occur at the epicentre of the global HIV epidemic. Both experiencing adolescent pregnancy and living with HIV have been found to be associated with adverse mental health outcomes, when investigated separately. Poor mental health may have implications for both parent and child. The literature regarding mental health within groups experiencing both HIV and adolescent pregnancy is yet to be summarised. This systematic review sought to identify (1) the prevalence/occurrence of common mental disorder amongst adolescents who are living with HIV and have experienced pregnancy, (inclusive of adolescent fathers) in sub-Saharan Africa (2) risk and protective factors for common mental disorder among this group, and (3) interventions (prevention/treatment) for common mental disorder among this group. A systematic search of electronic databases using pre-defined search terms, supplemented by hand-searching, was undertaken in September 2020. One author and an independent researcher completed a title and abstract screening of results from the search. A full-text search of all seemingly relevant manuscripts (both quantitative and qualitative) was undertaken and data extracted using pre-determined criteria. A narrative synthesis of included studies is provided. Quality and risk of bias within included studies was assessed using the Newcastle-Ottawa scale. A systematic keyword search of databases and follow-up hand searching identified 2287 unique records. Of these, thirty-eight full-text quantitative records and seven full-text qualitative records were assessed for eligibility. No qualitative records met the eligibility criteria for inclusion within the review. One quantitative record was identified for inclusion. This study reported on depressive symptomology amongst 14 pregnant adolescents living with HIV in Kenya, identifying a prevalence of 92.9%. This included study did not meet the high methodological quality of this review. No studies were identified reporting on risk and protective factors for common mental disorder, and no studies were found identifying any specific interventions for common mental disorder for this group, either for prevention or for treatment. The limited data identified within this review provides no good quality evidence relating to the prevalence of common mental disorder among adolescents living with HIV who have experienced pregnancy in sub-Saharan Africa. No data was available relating to risk and protective factors or interventions for psychological distress amongst this group. This systematic review identifies a need for rigorous evidence regarding the mental health of pregnant and parenting adolescents living with HIV, and calls for granular interrogation of existing data to further our understanding of the needs of this group. The absence of research on this topic (both quantitative and qualitative) is a critical evidence gap, limiting evidence-based policy and programming responses, as well as regional development opportunities.

Babies and toddlers are amassing huge followings on social media, achieving microcelebrity status, and raking in five figure sums. In East Asia, many of these lucrative “micro­-microcelebrities” rise to fame by inheriting exposure and proximate microcelebrification from their social media Influencer mothers. Through self-branding techniques, Influencer mothers’ portrayals of their young’ children’s lives “as lived” are the canvas on which (baby) products and services are marketed to readers as “advertorials”. In turning to investigate this budding phenomenon, I draw on ethnographic case studies in Singapore to outline the career trajectory of these young children (under 4yo) including their social media presence, branding strategies, and engagement with their followers. The chapter closes with a brief discussion on some ethical considerations of such young children’s labour in the social media age.Influencer MothersTheresa Senft first coined the term “microcelebrity” in her work Camgirls as a burgeoning online trend, wherein people attempt to gain popularity by employing digital media technologies, such as videos, blogs, and social media. She describes microcelebrities as “non-actors as performers” whose narratives take place “without overt manipulation”, and who are “more ‘real’ than television personalities with ‘perfect hair, perfect friends and perfect lives’” (Senft 16), foregrounding their active response to their communities in the ways that maintain open channels of feedback on social media to engage with their following.Influencers – a vernacular industry term albeit inspired by Katz & Lazarsfeld’s notion of “personal influence” that predates Internet culture – are one type of microcelebrity; they are everyday, ordinary Internet users who accumulate a relatively large following on blogs and social media through the textual and visual narration of their personal lives and lifestyles, engage with their following in “digital” and “physical” spaces, and monetize their following by integrating “advertorials” into their blog or social media posts and making physical appearances at events. A pastiche of “advertisement” and “editorial”, advertorials in the Influencer industry are highly personalized, opinion-laden promotions of products/services that Influencers personally experience and endorse for a fee. Influencers in Singapore often brand themselves as having “relatability”, or the ability to persuade their followers to identify with them (Abidin). They do so by make consciously visible the backstage (Goffman) of the usually “inaccessible”, “personal”, and “private” aspects of mundane, everyday life to curate personae that feel “authentic” to fans (Marwick 114), and more accessible than traditional celebrity (Senft 16).Historically, the Influencer industry in Singapore can be traced back to the early beginnings of the “blogshop” industry from the mid-2000s and the “commercial blogging” industry. Influencers are predominantly young women, and market products and services from diverse industries, although the most popular have been fashion, beauty, F&B, travel, and electronics. Most prominent Influencers are contracted to management agencies who broker deals in exchange for commission and assist in the production of their vlogs. Since then, the industry has grown, matured, and expanded so rapidly that Influencers developed emergent models of advertorials, with the earliest cohorts moving into different life stages and monetizing several other aspects of their personal lives such as the “micro-microcelebrity” of their young children. What this paper provides is an important analysis of the genesis and normative practices of micro-microcelebrity commerce in Singapore from its earliest years, and future research trajectories in this field.Micro-Microcelebrity and Proximate MicrocelebrificationI define micro-microcelebrities as the children of Influencers who have themselves become proximate microcelebrities, having derived exposure and fame from their prominent Influencer mothers, usually through a more prolific, deliberate, and commercial form of what Blum-Ross defines as “sharenting”: the act of parents sharing images and stores about their children in digital spaces such as social networking sites and blogs. Marwick (116-117), drawing from Rojek’s work on types of celebrity – distinguishes between two types of microcelebrity: “ascribed microcelebrity” where the online personality is made recognizable through the “production of celebrity media” such as paparazzi shots and user-produced online memes, or “achieved microcelebrity” where users engage in “self-presentation strateg[ies]”, such as fostering the illusion of intimacy with fans, maintaining a persona, and selective disclosure about oneself.Micro-microcelebrities lie somewhere between the two: In a process I term “proximate microcelebrification”, micro-microcelebrities themselves inherit celebrity through the preemptive and continuous exposure from their Influencer mothers, many beginning even during the pre-birth pregnancy stages in the form of ultrasound scans, as a form of “achieved microcelebrity”. Influencer mothers whose “presentational strategies” (cf. Marshall, “Promotion” 45) are successful enough (as will be addressed later) gain traction among followers, who in turn further popularize the micro-microcelebrity by setting up fan accounts, tribute sites, and gossip forums through which fame is heightened in a feedback loop as a model of “ascribed microcelebrity”.Here, however, I refrain from conceptualizing these young stars as “micro-Influencers” for unlike Influencers, these children do not yet curate their self-presentation to command the attention of followers, but instead are used, framed, and appropriated by their mothers for advertorials. In other words, Influencer mothers “curate [micro-microcelebrities’] identities into being” (Leaver, “Birth”). Following this, many aspects of their micro-microcelebrities become rapidly commodified and commercialized, with advertisers clamoring to endorse anything from maternity hospital stays to nappy cream.Although children of mommybloggers have the prospect to become micro-microcelebrities, both groups are conceptually distinct. Friedman (200-201) argues that among mommybloggers arose a tension between those who adopt “the raw authenticity of nonmonetized blogging”, documenting the “unglamorous minutiae” of their daily lives and a “more authentic view of motherhood” and those who use mommyblogs “primarily as a source of extra income rather than as a site for memoir”, focusing on “parent-centered products” (cf. Mom Bloggers Club).In contrast, micro-microcelebrities and their digital presence are deliberately commercial, framed and staged by Influencer mothers in order to maximize their advertorial potential, and are often postured to market even non-baby/parenting products such as fast food and vehicles (see later). Because of the overt commerce, it is unclear if micro-microcelebrity displays constitute “intimate surveillance”, an “almost always well-intentioned surveillance of young people by parents” (Leaver, “Born” 4). Furthermore, children are generally peripheral to mommybloggers whose own parenting narratives take precedence as a way to connect with fellow mothers, while micro-microcelebrities are the primary feature whose everyday lives and digital presence enrapture followers.MethodologyThe analysis presented is informed by my original fieldwork with 125 Influencers and related actors among whom I conducted a mixture of physical and digital personal interviews, participant observation, web archaeology, and archival research between December 2011 and October 2014. However, the material presented here is based on my digital participant observation of publicly accessible and intentionally-public digital presence of the first four highly successful micro-microcelebrities in Singapore: “Baby Dash” (b.2013) is the son of Influencer xiaxue, “#HeYurou” (b.2011) is the niece of Influencer bongqiuqiu, “#BabyElroyE” (b.2014) is the son of Influencer ohsofickle, and “@MereGoRound” (b.2015) is the daughter of Influencer bongqiuqiu.The microcelebrity/social media handles of these children take different forms, following the platform on which their parent/aunt has exposed them on the most. Baby Dash appears in all of xiaxue’s digital platforms under a variety of over 30 indexical, ironic, or humourous hashtags (Leaver, “Birth”) including “#pointylipped”, #pineappledash”, and “#面包脸” (trans. “bread face”); “#HeYurou” appears on bongqiuqiu’s Instagram and Twitter; “#BabyElroyE” appears on ohsofickle’s Instagram and blog, and is the central figure of his mother’s new YouTube channel; and “@MereGoRound” appears on all of bongqiuqiu’s digital platforms but also has her own Instagram account and dedicated YouTube channel. The images reproduced here are screenshot from Influencer mothers’ highly public social media: xiaxue, bongqiuqiu, and ohsofickle boast 593k, 277k, and 124k followers on Instagram and 263k, 41k, and 17k followers on Twitter respectively at the time of writing.Anticipation and Digital EstatesIn an exclusive front-pager (Figure 1) on the day of his induced birth, it was announced that Baby Dash had already received up to SGD25,000 worth of endorsement deals brokered by his Influencer mother, xiaxue. As the first micro-microcelebrity in his cohort (his mother was among the pioneer Influencers), Baby Dash’s Caesarean section was even filmed and posted on xiaxue’s YouTube channel in three parts (Figure 2). xiaxue had announced her pregnancy on her blog while in her second trimester, following which she consistently posted mirror selfies of her baby bump.Figure 1 & 2, screenshot April 2013 from ‹instagram.com/xiaxue›In her successful attempt at generating anticipation, the “bump” itself seemed to garner its own following on Twitter and Instagram, with many followers discussing how the Influencer dressed “it”, and how “it” was evolving over the weeks. One follower even compiled a collage of xiaxue’s “bump” chronologically and gifted it to the Influencer as an art image via Twitter on the day she delivered Baby Dash (Figure 3 & 4). Followers also frequently speculated and bantered about how her baby would look, and mused about how much they were going to adore him. Figure 3 & 4, screenshot March 2013 from ‹twitter.com/xiaxue› While Lupton (42) has conceptualized the sharing of images that precede birth as a “rite of passage”, Influencer mothers who publish sonograms deliberately do so in order to claim digital estates for their to-be micro-microcelebrities in the form of “reserved” social media handles, blog URLs, and unique hashtags for self-branding. For instance, at the 3-month mark of her pregnancy, Influencer bongqiuqiu debuted her baby’s dedicated hashtag, “#MereGoRound” in a birth announcement on her on Instagram account. Shortly after, she started an Instagram account, “@MereGoRound”, for her baby, who amassed over 5.5k followers prior to her birth. Figure 5 & 6, screenshot March 2015 from instagram.com/meregoround and instagram.com/bongqiuqiuThe debut picture features a heavily pregnant belly shot of bongqiuqiu (Figure 5), creating much anticipation for the arrival of a new micro-microcelebrity: in the six months leading up to her birth, various family, friends, and fans shared Instagram images of their gifts and welcome party for @MereGoRound, and followers shared congratulations and fan art on the dedicated Instagram hashtag. During this time, bongqiuqiu also frequently updated followers on her pregnancy progress, not without advertising her (presumably sponsored) gynecologist and hospital stay in her pregnancy diaries (Figure 6) – like Baby Dash, even as a foetus @MereGoRound was accumulating advertorials. Presently at six months old, @MereGoRound boasts almost 40k followers on Instagram on which embedded in the narrative of her growth are sponsored products and services from various advertisers.Non-Baby-Related AdvertorialsPrior to her pregnancy, Influencer bongqiuqiu hopped onto the micro-microcelebrity bandwagon in the wake of Baby Dash’s birth, by using her niece “#HeYurou” in her advertorials. Many Influencers attempt to naturalize their advertorials by composing their post as if recounting a family event. With reference to a child, parent, or partner, they may muse or quip about a product being used or an experience being shared in a bid to mask the distinction between their personal and commercial material. bongqiuqiu frequently posted personal, non-sponsored images engaging in daily mundane activities under the dedicated hashtag “#HeYurou”.However, this was occasionally interspersed with pictures of her niece holding on to various products including storybooks (Figure 8) and shopping bags (Figure 9). At first glance, this might have seemed like any mundane daily update the Influencer often posts. However, a close inspection reveals the caption bearing sponsor hashtags, tags, and campaign information. For instance, one Instagram post shows #HeYurou casually holding on to and staring at a burger in KFC wrapping (Figure 7), but when read in tandem with bongqiuqiu’s other KFC-related posts published over a span of a few months, it becomes clear that #HeYurou was in fact advertising for KFC. Figure 7, 8, 9, screenshot December 2014 from ‹instagram.com/bongqiuqiu›Elsewhere, Baby Dash was incorporated into xiaxue’s car sponsorship with over 20 large decals of one of his viral photos – dubbed “pineapple Dash” among followers – plastered all over her vehicle (Figure 10). Followers who spot the car in public are encouraged to photograph and upload the image using its dedicated hashtag, “#xiaxuecar” as part of the Influencer’s car sponsorship – an engagement scarcely related to her young child. Since then, xiaxue has speculated producing offshoots of “pineapple Dash” products including smartphone casings. Figure 10, screenshot December 2014 from ‹instagram.com/xiaxue›Follower EngagementSponsors regularly organize fan meet-and-greets headlined by micro-microcelebrities in order to attract potential customers. Photo opportunities and the chance to see Baby Dash “in the flesh” frequently front press and promotional material of marketing campaigns. Elsewhere on social media, several Baby Dash fan and tribute accounts have also emerged on Instagram, reposting images and related media of the micro-microcelebrity with overt adoration, no doubt encouraged by xiaxue, who began crowdsourcing captions for Baby Dash’s photos.Influencer ohsofickle postures #BabyElroyE’s follower engagement in a more subtle way. In her YouTube channel that debut in the month of her baby’s birth, ohsofickle produces video diaries of being a young, single, mother who is raising a child (Figure 11). In each episode, #BabyElroyE is the main feature whose daily activities are documented, and while there is some advertising embedded, ohsofickle’s approach on YouTube is much less overt than others as it features much more non-monetized personal content (Figure 12). Her blog serves as a backchannel to her vlogs, in which she recounts her struggles with motherhood and explicitly solicits the advice of mothers. However, owing to her young age (she became an Influencer at 17 and gave birth at 24), many of her followers are teenagers and young women who respond to her solicitations by gushing over #BabyElroyE’s images on Instagram. Figure 11 & 12, screenshot September 2015 from ‹instagram.com/ohsofickle›PrivacyAs noted by Holloway et al. (23), children like micro-microcelebrities will be among the first cohorts to inherit “digital profiles” of their “whole lifetime” as a “work in progress”, from parents who habitually underestimate or discount the privacy and long term effects of publicizing information about their children at the time of posting. This matters in a climate where social media platforms can amend privacy policies without user consent (23), and is even more pressing for micro-microcelebrities whose followers store, republish, and recirculate information in fan networks, resulting in digital footprints with persistence, replicability, scalability, searchability (boyd), and extended longevity in public circulation which can be attributed back to the children indefinitely (Leaver, “Ends”).Despite minimum age restrictions and recent concerns with “digital kidnapping” where users steal images of other young children to be re-posted as their own (Whigham), some social media platforms rarely police the proliferation of accounts set up by parents on behalf of their underage children prominently displaying their legal names and life histories, citing differing jurisdictions in various countries (Facebook; Instagram), while others claim to disable accounts if users report an “incorrect birth date” (cf. Google for YouTube). In Singapore, the Media Development Authority (MDA) which governs all print and digital media has no firm regulations for this but suggests that the age of consent is 16 judging by their recommendation to parents with children aged below 16 to subscribe to Internet filtering services (Media Development Authority, “Regulatory” 1). Moreover, current initiatives have been focused on how parents can impart digital literacy to their children (Media Development Authority, “Empowered”; Media Literacy Council) as opposed to educating parents about the digital footprints they may be unwittingly leaving about their children.The digital lives of micro-microcelebrities pose new layers of concern given their publicness and deliberate publicity, specifically hinged on making visible the usually inaccessible, private aspects of everyday life (Marshall, “Persona” 5).Scholars note that celebrities are individuals for whom speculation of their private lives takes precedence over their actual public role or career (Geraghty 100-101; Turner 8). However, the personae of Influencers and their young children are shaped by ambiguously blurring the boundaries of privacy and publicness in order to bait followers’ attention, such that privacy and publicness are defined by being broadcast, circulated, and publicized (Warner 414). In other words, the publicness of micro-microcelebrities is premised on the extent of the intentional publicity rather than simply being in the public domain (Marwick 223-231, emphasis mine).Among Influencers privacy concerns have aroused awareness but not action – Baby Dash’s Influencer mother admitted in a national radio interview that he has received a death threat via Instagram but feels that her child is unlikely to be actually attacked (Channel News Asia) – because privacy is a commodity that is manipulated and performed to advance their micro-microcelebrities’ careers. As pioneer micro-microcelebrities are all under 2-years-old at present, future research warrants investigating “child-centred definitions” (Third et al.) of the transition in which they come of age, grow an awareness of their digital presence, respond to their Influencer mothers’ actions, and potentially take over their accounts.Young LabourThe Ministry of Manpower (MOM) in Singapore, which regulates the employment of children and young persons, states that children under the age of 13 may not legally work in non-industrial or industrial settings (Ministry of Manpower). However, the same document later ambiguously states underaged children who do work can only do so under strict work limits (Ministry of Manpower). Elsewhere (Chan), it is noted that national labour statistics have thus far only focused on those above the age of 15, thus neglecting a true reflection of underaged labour in Singapore. This is despite the prominence of micro-microcelebrities who are put in front of (video) cameras to build social media content. Additionally, the work of micro-microcelebrities on digital platforms has not yet been formally recognized as labour, and is not regulated by any authority including Influencer management firms, clients, the MDA, and the MOM. Brief snippets from my ethnographic fieldwork with Influencer management agencies in Singapore similarly reveal that micro-microcelebrities’ labour engagements and control of their earnings are entirely at their parents’ discretion.As models and actors, micro-microcelebrities are one form of entertainment workers who if between the ages of 15 days and 18 years in the state of California are required to obtain an Entertainment Work Permit to be gainfully employed, adhering to strict work, schooling, and rest hour quotas (Department of Industrial Relations). Furthermore, the Californian Coogan Law affirms that earnings by these minors are their own property and not their parents’, although they are not old enough to legally control their finances and rely on the state to govern their earnings with a legal guardian (Screen Actors Guild). However, this similarly excludes underaged children and micro-microcelebrities engaged in creative digital ecologies. Future research should look into safeguards and instruments among young child entertainers, especially for micro-micrcocelebrities’ among whom commercial work and personal documentation is not always distinct, and are in fact deliberately intertwined in order to better engage with followers for relatabilityGrowing Up BrandedIn the wake of moral panics over excessive surveillance technologies, children’s safety on the Internet, and data retention concerns, micro-microcelebrities and their Influencer mothers stand out for their deliberately personal and overtly commercial approach towards self-documenting, self-presenting, and self-publicizing from the moment of conception. As these debut micro-microcelebrities grow older and inherit digital publics, personae, and careers, future research should focus on the transition of their ownership, engagement, and reactions to a branded childhood in which babies were postured for an initimate public.ReferencesAbidin, Crystal. “Communicative Intimacies: Influencers and Perceived Interconnectedness.” Ada: A Journal of Gender, New Media, & Technology. Forthcoming, Nov 2015.Aiello, Marianne. “Mommy Blog Banner Ads Get Results.” Healthcare Marketing Advisor 17 Nov. 2010. HealthLeaders Media. 16 Aug. 2015 ‹http://healthleadersmedia.com/content/MAR-259215/Mommy-Blog-Banner-Ads-Get-Results›.Azzarone, Stephanie. “When Consumers Report: Mommy Blogging Your Way to Success.” Playthings 18 Feb. 2009. Upfront: Marketing. 16 Aug. 2015 ‹http://mamanista.com/media/Mamanista_playthings_full.pdf›.Blum-Ross, Alicia. “’Sharenting’: Parent Bloggers and Managing Children’s Digital Footprints.” Parenting for a Digital Future, 17 Jun. 2015. 16 Aug. 2015 ‹http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/parenting4digitalfuture/2015/06/17/managing-your-childs-digital-footprint-and-or-parent-bloggers-ahead-of-brit-mums-on-the-20th-of-june/›.boyd, danah. “Social Network Sites and Networked Publics: Affordances, Dymanics and Implications.” A Networked Self: Identity, Community, and Culture on Social Network Sites. Ed. Zizi Papacharissi. London: Routledge, 2010. 39–58.Business Wire. “Attention All Mommy Bloggers: TheBump.com Launches 2nd Annual The Bump Mommy Blog Awards.” Business Wire 2 Nov. 2010. 16 Aug. 2015 ‹http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20101102007005/en/Attention-Mommy-Bloggers-TheBump.com-Launches-2nd-Annual#.VdDsXp2qqko›.Channel News Asia. “Blogger Xiaxue ‘On the Record’.” Channel News Asia 10 Jul. 2015. 16 Aug. 2015 ‹http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/blogger-xiaxue-on-the/1975712.html›.Chan, Wing Cheong. “Protection of Underaged Workers in Singapore: Domestic and International Regulation.” Singapore Academy of Law Journal 17 (2005): 668-692. ‹http://www.sal.org.sg/digitallibrary/Lists/SAL%20Journal/Attachments/376/2005-17-SAcLJ-668-Chan.pdf›.Department of Industrial Relations. “California Child Labor Laws.” Department of Industrial Relations, 2013. 16 Aug. 2015 ‹http://www.dir.ca.gov/DLSE/ChildLaborLawPamphlet.pdf›.Facebook. “How Do I Report a Child under the Age of 13?” Facebook 2015. 16 Aug. 2015 ‹https://www.facebook.com/help/157793540954833›.Friedman, Mary. Mommyblogs and the Changing Face of Motherhood. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press, 2013.Geraghty, Christine. “Re-Examining Stardom: Questions of Texts, Bodies and Performance.” Stardom and Celebrity: A Reader. Eds. Sean Redmond & Su Holmes. Los Angeles: Sage, 2007. 98-110.Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. London: Penguin Books, 1956. Google. “Age Requirements on Google Accounts.” Google Support 2015. 16 Aug. 2015 ‹https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/1350409?hl=en›.Holloway, Donell, Lelia Green, and Sonia Livingstone. “Zero to Eight: Young Children and Their Internet Use.” EU Kids Online 2013. London: London School of Economics. 16. Aug 2015 ‹http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/52630/1/Zero_to_eight.pdf›.Howell, Whitney L.J. “Mom-to-Mom Blogs: Hospitals Invite Women to Share Experiences.” H&HN 84.10(2010): 18. ‹http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/54858655/mom-to-mom-blogs-hospitals-invite-women-share-experiences-mommy-blogs-are-catching-as-way-let-parents-interact-compare-notes›.Instagram. “Tips for Parents.” Instagram Help 2015. 16 Aug. 2015 ‹https://help.instagram.com/154475974694511/›.Katz, Elihu, and Paul F. Lazarsfeld. Personal Influence: The Part Played by People in the Flow of Mass Communications. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2009. Leaver, Tama. “The Ends of Online Identity”. Paper presented at Internet Research 12, Seattle, 2011.Leaver, Tama. “Birth and Death on Social Media: Dr Tama Leaver.” Lecture presented at Curtin University, 20 Jul. 2015.. 16 Aug. 2015 ‹https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQ6eW6qxGx8›.Leaver, Tama. “Born Digital? Presence, Privacy, and Intimate Surveillance.” Re-Orientation: Translingual Transcultural Transmedia: Studies in Narrative, Language, Identity, and Knowledge. Eds. John Hartley & Weiguo Qu. Fudan University Press, forthcoming.Lupton, Deborah. The Social Worlds of the Unborn. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2013.Marshall, P. David. "The Promotion and Presentation of the Self: Celebrity as Marker of Presentational Media." Celebrity Studies 1.1 (2010): 35-48. Marshall, P. David. “Persona Studies: Mapping the Proliferation of the Public Self.” Journalism 15.2 (2013): 153-170. Marwick, Alice E. Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity, & Branding in the Social Media Age. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013.Media Development Authority. “The Regulatory Options to Facilitate the Adoption of Internet Parental Controls.” Regulations and Licensing 2015. 16 Aug. 2015 ‹http://www.mda.gov.sg/RegulationsAndLicensing/Consultation/Documents/Consultation%20Papers/Public%20consultation%20paper%20for%20Internet%20parental%20controls_21%20Apr_final.pdf›.Media Development Authority. “Be Empowered! Protecting Your Kids in the Digital Age.” Documents 2015. 16 Aug. 2015 ‹http://www.mda.gov.sg/Documents/Newsletter/Issue08/Pages/02.aspx.html›.Media Literacy Council. “Clique Click: Bringing Up Children in the Digital Age.” Resources 2014. 16 Aug. 2015 ‹http://www.medialiteracycouncil.sg/Lists/Resources/Attachments/176/Clique%20Click.pdf›.Ministry of Manpower. “Employing Young Persons and Children.” Employment 26 May 2014. 16 Aug. 2015 ‹http://www.mom.gov.sg/employment-practices/young-persons-and-children›.Mom Bloggers Club. “Eight Proven Ways to Monetize Your Mom Blog.” Mom Bloggers Club 19 Nov. 2009. 15 Aug. 2015 ‹http://www.mombloggersclub.com/page/eight-proven-ways-to-monetize?id=988554%3APage%3A345278&page=3#comments›.Morrison, Aimee. “‘Suffused by Feeling and Affect:’ The Intimate Public of Personal Mommy Blogging.” Biography 34.1 (2011): 37-55.Nash, Meredith. “Shapes of Motherhood: Exploring Postnatal Body Image through Photographs.” Journal of Gender Studies (2013): 1-20. ‹http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09589236.2013.797340#.VdDsvZ2qqko›.Rojek, Chris. Celebrity. London: Reaktion Books, 2001. Screen Actors Guild. “Coogan Law.” SAGAFTRA 2015. 16 Aug. 2015 ‹http://www.sagaftra.org/content/coogan-law›.Senft, Theresa. M. Camgirls: Celebrity & Community in the Age of Social Networks. New York, NY: Peter Lang, 2008.Stevenson, Seth. “Popularity Counts.” Wired 20.5 (2012): 120.Tatum, Christine. “Mommy Blogs Mull and Prove Market Might.” Denver Post 23 Oct 2007. 16 Aug. 2015 ‹http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_7250753›.Third, Amanda, Delphine Bellerose, Urszula Dawkins, Emma Keltie, and Kari Pihl. “Children’s Rights in the Digital Age.” Young and Well Cooperative Research Centre 2014. 16 Aug. 2015 ‹http://www.youngandwellcrc.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Childrens-Rights-in-the-Digital-Age_Report_single_FINAL_.pdf >.Thompson, Stephanie. “Mommy Blogs: A Marketer’s Dream; Growing Number of Well-Produced Sites Put Advertisers in Touch with an Affluent, Loyal Demo.” AD AGE 26 Feb. 2007. 16 Aug. 2015 ‹http://adage.com/article/digital/mommy-blogs-a-marketer-s-dream/115194/›.Turner, Graeme. Understanding Celebrity. Los Angeles: Sage, 2004.Warner, Michael. “Publics and Counter Publics.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 88.4 (2002): 413-425. Whigham, Nick. “Digital Kidnapping Will Make You Think Twice about What You Post to Social Media.” News.com.au 15 July 2015. 16 Aug. 2015 ‹http://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/digital-kidnapping-will-make-you-think-twice-about-what-you-post-to-social-media/story-fnq2oad4-1227449635495›.

Abstract Background This review summarizes the state of knowledge of use of new media on the development in early childhood in 6 sections: descriptive utilization data, psychosocial and emotional development, cognition and language, motor development, nutrition and sleep, and influence of parental media consumption. Methods The review is based on a literature search of this topic in peer-reviewed journals. We included 87 articles, books, and book chapters. The used literature data bases were ERIC, PsycARTICLES, PsycINFO and PSYNDEX. Results Manifold studies describe in young children’s utilization data the pervasive nature of digital exposure and impressive usage times and availability. They confirm adverse influences of electronic media use (television, video games) on children’s emotional and behavioral problems and well-being, e. g. on physical activity, sleep and obesity. In general a positive effect in sense of knowledge transfer of age could be found for high quality educational media, however predominantly the impact of media use at younger age was negative. Conclusions High frequent media use in early childhood is likely to have a negative impact on psychosocial development, positive effects such as knowledge transfer may be seen beyond the age of 18 months. As parental media use is a strong predictor of child media habits, reducing parental media use and enhancing parent–child interactions might be important areas to address when trying to change the media behavior of young children. In view of the scarcity of studies for early childhood, it is advisable to use digital play and communication devices cautiously and restrictively in this vulnerable development phase.

Abstract Background Home-based interventions have potential for improving early child development (ECD) in low-resource settings. The design of locally acceptable strategies requires an in-depth understanding of the household context. In this formative research study, we aimed to characterize the home play and learning environments of children 6–23 months of age from low-income households in peri-urban Lima, Peru. Methods Drawing on the developmental niche framework, we used quantitative and qualitative methods to understand children’s physical and social settings, childcare practices, and caregiver perspectives. We conducted interviews, unstructured video-recorded observations, and spot-checks with 30 randomly selected caregiver-child dyads, 10 from each child age group of 6–11, 12–17, and 18–23 months of age, as well as key informant interviews with 12 daycare instructors. We analyzed the data for key trends and themes using Stata and ATLAS.ti and employed an adapted version of the Indicator of Parent-Child Interaction to evaluate the observations. Results Children’s social settings were characterized by multi-generational homes and the presence of siblings and cousins as play partners. Access to books and complex hand-eye coordination toys (e.g., puzzles, building blocks) in the home was limited (30.0 and 40.0%, respectively). Caregivers generally demonstrated low or inconsistent levels of interaction with their children; they rarely communicated using descriptive language or introduced novel, stimulating activities during play. Reading and telling stories to children were uncommon, yet 93.3% of caregivers reported singing to children daily. On average, caregivers ascribed a high learning value to reading books and playing with electronic toys (rated 9.7 and 9.1 out of 10, respectively), and perceived playing with everyday objects in the home as less beneficial (rated 6.8/10). Daycare instructors reinforced the problems posed by limited caregiver-child interaction and supported the use of songs for promoting ECD. Conclusions The features of the home learning environments highlighted here indicate several opportunities for intervention development to improve ECD. These include encouraging caregivers to communicate with children using full sentences and enhancing the use of everyday objects as toys. There is also great potential for leveraging song and music to encourage responsive caregiver-child interactions within the home setting.

Abstract Background Home-based interventions have potential for improving early child development (ECD) in low-resource settings. The design of locally acceptable strategies requires an in-depth understanding of the household context. In this formative research study, we aimed to characterize the home play and learning environments of children 6–23 months of age from low-income households in peri-urban Lima, Peru. Methods Drawing on the developmental niche framework, we used quantitative and qualitative methods to understand children’s physical and social settings, childcare practices, and caregiver perspectives. We conducted interviews, unstructured video-recorded observations, and spot-checks with 30 randomly selected caregiver-child dyads, 10 from each child age group of 6–11, 12–17, and 18–23 months of age, as well as key informant interviews with 12 daycare instructors. We analyzed the data for key trends and themes using Stata and ATLAS.ti and employed an adapted version of the Indicator of Parent-Child Interaction to evaluate the observations. Results Children’s social settings were characterized by multi-generational homes and the presence of siblings and cousins as play partners. Access to books and complex hand-eye coordination toys (e.g., puzzles, building blocks) in the home was limited (30.0 and 40.0%, respectively). Caregivers generally demonstrated low or inconsistent levels of interaction with their children; they rarely communicated using descriptive language or introduced novel, stimulating activities during play. Reading and telling stories to children were uncommon, yet 93.3% of caregivers reported singing to children daily. On average, caregivers ascribed a high learning value to reading books and playing with electronic toys (rated 9.7 and 9.1 out of 10, respectively), and perceived playing with everyday objects in the home as less beneficial (rated 6.8/10). Daycare instructors reinforced the problems posed by limited caregiver-child interaction and supported the use of songs for promoting ECD. Conclusions The features of the home learning environments highlighted here indicate several opportunities for intervention development to improve ECD. These include encouraging caregivers to communicate with children using full sentences and enhancing the use of everyday objects as toys. There is also great potential for leveraging song and music to encourage responsive caregiver-child interactions within the home setting.

The negative implications of children’s use of the Internet, particularly their loss of innocence through access to pornography, is a topic frequently addressed in public discussions and debate. These debates often take on a technologically determinist point of view and assume that technology directly influences children, usually in a harmful fashion. But what is really happening in the Australian family home? Are parents fearful of these risks, and if so what are they doing about it? A recent exploration of the everyday Internet lives of Australian families indicates that families manage these perceived risks in a variety of ways and are not overly troubled about this issue. Findings from the research project indicate that Australian parents are more concerned about some children’s excessive use of the Internet than about pornography. They construct the Internet as interfering with time available to carry out homework, chores, getting adequate sleep or participating in outdoor (fresh air) activities. This disparity, between public discourse regarding the protection of children in the online environment and the actual significance of this issue in the everyday lives of Australian families, reflects the domestic dynamics within the “moral economy of the household” (Silverstone et al. 15) whereby family relationships and household practices inform the manner in which technology is consumed within any given household. The research project described here (Family Internet: Theorising Domestic Internet Consumption, Production and Use Within Australian Families) is funded by an Australian Research Council Discovery Grant and investigates Internet use within Australian homes with specific reference to families with school-aged children. It explores how individual family members make sense of their family’s engagement with the Internet and investigates ways in which the Internet is integrated within Australian family life. Public Debates The relationship between children and technology is often addressed in public debates regarding children’s health, safety, social and educational development. Within these debates technology is usually held responsible for a variety of harmful consequences to children. These technological ‘effects’ range from the decline of children’s social relationships (with both peers and family); through sedentary lifestyles which impinge on fitness levels and the weight (body mass index) of children; to the corruption of children (and their loss of innocence) through access to unsuitable materials. These unsuitable texts include “soft and hardcore porn, Neo Nazi groups, paedophiles, racial and ethnic hatred” (Valentine et al. 157). Other digital technologies, such as computer and video games, are sometimes seen as exacerbating these problems and raise the spectre of the ‘Nintendo kid’, friendless and withdrawn (Marshall 73), lacking in social skills and unable to relate to others except through multi-player games – although this caricature appears far removed from children’s normal experience of computer gaming (Aisbett: Durkin and Aisbett). Such debates about the negative implications of the Internet and video games run simultaneously alongside government, educational and commercial promotion of these technologies, and the positioning of digital skills and connectivity as the key to children’s future education and employment. In this pro-technology discourse the family: …is being constructed as an entry point for the development of new computer-related literacies and social practices in young people … what is discursively produced within the global cultural economy as digital fun and games for young people, is simultaneously constructed as serious business for parents (Nixon 23). Thus, two conflicting discourses about children’s Internet use exist simultaneously whereby children are considered both “technically competent and at risk from their technical skills” (Valentine et al. 157). This anxiety is further exacerbated by the fear that parents are losing control of their children’s Internet activities because their own (the parents’) technical competencies are being surpassed by their children. Such fear may well be based on misleading information, particularly in the Australian context. The Australian Broadcasting Authority’s 2001 Internet@ home report “challenges the popular belief that parents lag behind their children in their interest and proficiency with online technology. Most often the household Internet ‘expert’ is an adult” (Aisbett 4). Nonetheless, this public anxiety is underscored by a concern that parents may not be sufficiently Internet-savvy to prevent their children’s access to pornography and other undesirable Internet content. This leads to the fundamental anxiety that parents’ natural power base will be diminished (Valentine et al. 157). In the case of children’s access to Internet porn it may well be that: although parents still occupy the role of initiated with regard to sexuality, if they are uninitiated technologically then they lose the power base from which to set the markers for progressive socialisation (Evans and Butkus 68). These popular fears do not take into consideration the context of Internet use in the real world—of children’s and parents’ actual experiences with and uses of the Internet. Parents have developed a variety of ways to manage these perceived risks in the home and are not usually overly concerned about their children’s exposure to unsuitable or inappropriate content on the Internet. Families’ everyday experiences of Internet consumption The home Internet is one site where most parents exercise some degree of care and control of their children, supervising both the quantity and quality of their children’s Internet experiences. When supervising their children’s access to particular Internet sites, parents in this study use a variety of strategies and approaches. These approaches range from a child-empowering ‘autonomous’ approach (which recognises children’s autonomy and competencies) to more authoritarian approaches (with the use of more direct supervision in order to restrict and protect children). At the same time children may use the Internet to affirm their autonomy or independence from their parents, as parents in this study affirm: He used to let me see the [onscreen] conversations but he won’t let me see them now. But that’s fine. If I come up and talk to him, he clicks the button and takes the screen off. (Kathy, pseudonyms used for interviewee contributions) Parents who tend to favour a child-empowering approach recognise their children’s autonomy, while at the same time having relatively high expectations of their children’s psychosocial competence and ability to handle a variety of media texts in a relatively sophisticated manner. When asked about her son’s access to adult Internet content, single mum Lisa indicated that Henry (17) had openly accessed Internet pornography a few years earlier. She expected (and allowed for) some exploration by her son. At the same time, she was not overly concerned that these materials would corrupt or harm him as she expected these explorations to be a transitory phase in his life: It doesn’t bother me at all. If he wants to do that then he can do it because he’ll get sick of it and I think initially it was ‘let’s see what we can do’. I remember once, he called me in and says ‘Mum, come and look at her boobs’ and I looked at it and I said ‘it’s disgusting’ or something and walked away and he laughed his head off. But I’ve never come in [lately] and found him looking at that stuff … It’s just not something that I’m … really worried about. It’s up to him (Lisa). As with this exchange, families often use media texts as tools in the socialisation of children. The provision of shared topics of conversation allows for discussions between generations: Such materials serve an agenda-setting role … [playing] an important role in providing a socioemotional context for the household within which learning takes place. Technoculture is consequently a critical tool for socialisation … ICTs also construct a framework on/with which to differentiate one member from another, to differentiate between generations, and to differentiate ways in which power and control can be asserted (Green 58). In this case, Lisa’s comment to her teenage son (‘it’s disgusting’) and her actions (in walking away) doubtlessly provided Henry with a social cue, an alternative attitude to his choice of online content. Further, in initiating this exchange with his mother, Henry is likely to have been making a statement about his own autonomy and transition into (heterosexual) manhood. In his interview, Henry openly acknowledged his earlier exploration of adult porn sites but (as his mother anticipated) he seems to have moved on from this particular phase. When asked whether he visited adult sites on the Internet Henry responded in his own succinct manner: Henry: Like porn and stuff? Not really. I probably did when I was a bit younger but it’s not really very exciting. Interviewer: That was when you first got it [the Internet] or when? Henry: Yeah, [two to three years earlier] all your friends come around and you check out the sites. It’s nothing exciting anymore. Sexual experiences and knowledge are an important currency within teenage boy culture (Holland et al. 1998) and like other teenage boys, Henry and his friends are likely to have used this technology in order to “negotiate their masculinity within the heterosexual economy of [their] peer group social relations”(Valentine et al. 160). In this case, it seemed to be a transitory stage within Henry’s peer (or community of interest) group and became less important as the teenagers grew into maturity. Many children and young people are also exploring the social world of Internet chat, with the potential risk of unwanted (and unsafe) face-to-face contact. Leonie, mother of teenage girls, explained her daughters’ ability to negotiate these potentially unsafe contacts: I suppose you just get a bit concerned about the chat lines and who they’re talking to sometimes but really they usually tell me … [to 17-year old daughter in the room] Like on the chat lines you, when, had that idiot … that one that was going to come over here. Just some idiots on there. A lot of the kids are teenagers. I know Shani’s [14] gotten on there a few times on the chat line and there’s been obviously someone asking them lewd questions and she’s usually blocked them and cut them off …(Leonie). Daughter Shani also discusses her experiences with unsafe (unwanted) Internet contact: “They go on about stuff that you don’t really want to talk about and it’s just ‘No, I don’t think so’” (Shani, 14). Shani went on to explain that she now prefers to use instant messaging with known (offline) friends—a preference now taken up by many teenagers (Holloway and Green: Livingstone and Bober). Electronic media play an important role in children’s transition to adulthood. The ubiquitousness of the World Wide Web, however, makes restriction and protection of children increasingly difficult to realise (Buckingham 84-5). Instead, many parents in this study are placing more importance on openness, consultation and discussion with their children about the media texts they encounter, rather than imposing restriction and regulation which these parents believe may well be “counter-productive” (Nightingale et al. 19). Of greater disquiet to many parents in this study than their children’s access to unsuitable online content is concern about their children’s possible excessive use of the Internet. Parents were typically more concerned about the amount of time some of their children were spending chatting to friends and playing online games. One mother explains: They [my daughters] started to use MSN whilst they were doing school work and obviously kids are able to listen to music, watch television, do a project. They can multi-task without all the confusion that I [would have] but we actually now, they’re not able to do MSN during the school week at all … so we now said to them, “if you want to ring somebody, give them a call, that’s fine, we don’t mind, but during the week no MSN” … we’ve actually restricted them (Stephanie). Parental concern about children’s excessive use of the Internet was most marked for parents of teenage children: adolescence being a time when “rules about media consumption can be an early site of resistance for young adults keen to take more power for themselves and their own lives” (Green 30). Father of two, Xavier, expressed his concern about (what he perceived as) his teenage son’s excessive use of the Internet: Well I think there’s far too much time … Gavin’ll spend a whole day on it. I try to get him to come to the footy on Sunday. No. He’s available for friends [for online gaming and chat on the Internet]. He’ll spend all day on the computer (Xavier). Son Gavin (16), in a separate interview, anticipated that this criticism had been made and felt compelled to counter it: Well he [dad] makes comments like saying I’m not fit enough ‘cause I spent too much time on the computer but I play soccer a lot. Like, I do sport perhaps everyday at school … I mean, I think, such a piece of crap (Gavin). Thus, the incorporation of the Internet into the domestic sphere often sees previously established boundaries (who uses what, when, where and for how long) redefined, challenged, resisted and defended by various family members. In this way the Internet (and other new media) helps shape (and is shaped by) the temporal and spatial boundaries within the home. Conclusion While all parents in the Family Internet study construct the Internet as a site which requires some level of care and control over their children’s online use, they use a variety of approaches when carrying out this supervisory role. Some parents tend to allow for children’s free exploration of the Internet and are relatively confident that their children are able to negotiate adult texts such as pornography in a comparatively sophisticated manner. Other parents, those inclined to protect their children from the dangers of adult content and unsafe Internet contact, choose to monitor and restrict their children’s access to the Internet to varying degrees. More consistent is parental concern about excessive use of the Internet, and the assumption that this displaces constructive use of children’s time. Public anxieties about children’s use of the Internet make assumptions about children’s media practices. Children (and their families) are often assumed to be less able to differentiate between suitable and unsuitable Internet texts and to deal with these potential dangers in a sensible manner. These fears presuppose a variety of negative impacts on children’s and young peoples’ lives which may have little to do with daily reality. Our exploration of families’ everyday experiences of Internet consumption highlights the disparity between public anxieties about Internet use and the importance of these anxieties in the everyday lives of families. The major concern of families – ill-disciplined and excessive Internet use – barely registers on the same scale as the public moral panic over children’s possible access to online pornography. These findings say less about the Internet as a locale in cyberspace than they do about the domestic dynamics of the household, parenting styles, relationships between parent(s) and children, and the sociocultural context of family life. References Aisbett, Kate. The Internet at Home: A Report on Internet Use in the Home. Sydney: Australian Broadcasting Authority, 2001. Buckingham, David. After the Death of Childhood: Growing up in the Age of Electronic Media. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 2000. Durkin, Kevin and Kate Aisbett. Computer Games and Australians Today. Sydney: Office of Film and Literature Classification, 1999. Evans, Mark and Clarice Butkus. “Regulating the Emergent: Cyberporn and the Traditional Media.” Media International Australia 85 (1997): 62-9. Green, Lelia. Technoculture: >From Alphabet to Cybersex. Crows Nest Australia: Allen and Unwin, 2002. Holland, Janet and Caroline Ramazanoglu, Sue Sharpe and Rachel Thomson. The Male in the Head: Young People, Heterosexuality and Power. London: Tufnell Press, 1998. Holloway, Donell and Lelia Green. “Home Is Where You Hang Your @: Australian Women on the Net.” Communications Research Forum. Canberra: Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, 2003. Livingstone, Sonia and Magdalena Bober. UK Children Go Online: Listening to Young People’s Experiences. London: London School of Economics and Political Science, 2003. Marshall, P. David. “Technophobia: Video Games, Computer Hacks and Cybernetics.” Media International Australia 85 (1997): 70-8. Nightingale, Virginia, Dianne Dickenson and Catherine Griff. “Harm: Children’s Views About Media Harm and Program Classification.” Forum. Sydney, Australia, 2000. Nixon, Helen. “Fun and Games Are Serious Business.” Digital Diversions: Youth Culture in the Age of Multi-Media. Ed. J Sefton-Green. London: UCL Press, 1998. Silverstone, Roger, Eric Hirsch and David Morley. “Information and Communication and the Moral Economy of the Household.” Consuming Technologies: Media and Information in Domestic Spaces. Eds. Roger Silverstone and Eric Hirsch. London: Routledge, 1992. 17-31. Valentine, Gill, Sarah Holloway and Nick Bingham. “Transforming Cyberspace: Children’s Interventions in the New Public Sphere.” Children’s Geographies: Playing, Living, Learning. Eds. Sarah L. Holloway and Gill Valentine. London: Routledge, 2000. 156 – 93. MLA Style Holloway, Donell, Lelia Green & Robyn Quin. "What Porn?: Children and the Family Internet." M/C Journal 7.4 (2004). 10 October 2004 <http://www.media-culture.org.au/0410/02_children.php>. APA Style Holloway, D., Green, L. & Quin, R. (2004 Oct 11). What Porn?: Children and the Family Internet, M/C Journal, 7(4). Retrieved Oct 10 2004 from <http://www.media-culture.org.au/0410/02_children.php>

Introduction In the following self-reflexive (examining my own experiences) piece I discuss the methodology of my PhD thesis which, completed in 2014 (Johnson On a Tightrope), focused on how women negotiate, reject and embody the expectations associated with contemporary pregnancy and mothering. In this qualitative research project I examined the types of pregnancy and parenting practices (defined as those practices undertaken to manage and maximise the success of women’s pregnancies and parenting) women engage in with reference to contemporary sources of information. Central to this, I studied the changing nature of pregnancy and mothering practices in the context of increasing digitalisation, with a particular focus on whether and how technologies enable new spaces for experiential learning and health responsibilisation. This also allowed me to query how various discourses work to inform particular ideas of ‘good’ or ‘appropriate’ mothering behaviours and mothering ideologies, and the expert patient ideal (Johnson Maternal Devices). An examination of the different resources and technologies women draw on during their transition to first-time motherhood reveals how dominant discourses are resisted, negotiated or differentially embodied by women facing first-time pregnancy and motherhood. Since the time I began my research, there has been an explosion of applications (apps) into the market. Pregnancy and mothering have been ‘appified’. Apps offer a unique way to order, engage with and reshape our bodies and biology today. They reflect wider cultural and social changes in the understanding of our identity, our ‘lifestyle’ and our body. In my study I drew on characterisations from participants in attempting to understand the affordances of apps and the role they may play during both pregnancy and new motherhood. I found that apps format motherhood and pregnancy in new ways, instituting new rules into new devices and offering templates which actively shape meanings and practices. They provide new ways to imagine or create foetal/child identity, to monitor child activity from a distance, to gather and interpret data and the enactment of “digital” helicopter parenting (Johnson Maternal Devices). Apps also represent a ‘tidbitisation’ of information which is delivered directly into the user’s intimate sphere, sometimes ‘pushed’ into this intimate sphere, no matter where they are. This ‘device-ification’ of mothering purports to turn it into an administrative and calculable activity, valuing data over subjective experiences and changing the meaning of what it is to mother and be a mother. Apps also represent the contemporary intersection between social media, medical advice, expectations of self-management and notions of convenience. They also creates new social relations and valuing practices, such as ‘likeability’ on Facebook, which have the potential to alter our understandings of health and identity. Increasing numbers of health initiatives are adopting apps in their promotional marketing campaigns and the appification of health means that medical knowledge is being increasingly incorporated into new sorts of social interactions. Ongoing research must consider the multiplicity of women’s engagement with these apps across the transition to first-time motherhood and for parents who are trying to manage child health. It would be productive to direct focus onto the lived experiences associated with apps rather than lauding or criticising the content of apps. Background The initial question that motivated my research was: ‘How do women draw on, weave together, and reject aspects of the dominant advice which configures contemporary perceptions of maternal subjectivity, encompassing specifically the transition to first-time motherhood?’ I was interested in what women in the transition to first-time motherhood experienced and how they reflected on and interpreted these experiences. The subjective accounts of women tell a particular story, so, rather than administering a survey to a large group of women I focused on in-depth, semi-structured but flexible interviews as a way of discovering participant experiences as expressed in their own words. Having only a small number of interview participants meant that I was able to analyse my data closely in a way that would be difficult with a larger sample. In total, I conducted twenty-two interviews with twelve women during January and September, 2012. This included two interviews with ten participants and one interview with the remaining two participants. The first interview was conducted during the third trimester of pregnancy, ranging from 32 to 38 weeks. The second interview was undertaken postnatally when the babies ranged from 3 to 7 months of age. For participant demographic information, please refer to earlier publications (Johnson Maternal Devices; Intimate Mothering Publics). Interviewing late in pregnancy and early in new motherhood provided a realistic sense of the changes, both positive and negative, which occur during this transition as well as the – at times – deep rift between experience and expectation. The time between interviews was important as it allowed women time to adjust somewhat to life as a new mum, allowed time for reflection on both the pregnancy and the early months of mothering. The interviews were conversational and relaxed in nature and allowed to flow in the direction the participant chose to take. The women were generous in sharing intimate details of their experiences from conception through to motherhood. Their responses revealed different ways of being pregnant, being supported and responsibilised during pregnancy, and the different ways women cope with stress, anxiety and more. The stories also demonstrate the amount of work, thought and often deliberate self-transformation which occurs throughout pregnancy, and as a new mother. I believe my personal biography influenced the data that I collected during the interviews. My age and sex advantaged my position as an interviewer. Being a relatively young female researcher it was easy to develop rapport with the participants. In addition, being a woman likely increased my access, as a researcher, to the intimate experiences women shared throughout the interviews, especially considering the gendered and personal nature of the research. It was also apparent that my absence of first-hand experience of pregnancy and mothering enhanced the depth of interview data, encouraging participants to provide access to details and feelings that they may have believed were unnecessary to discuss had I also been a mother. Rebecca Horn discusses a similar experience in her research with prison inmates and police staff, which she describes as being due to her projected image as an “innocent abroad” (96). It also meant that participants were more likely to share details because my lack of experience meant that I was not in a position to judge these experiences against my own. Throughout the interviews, the participants often wanted to know more about me, asking me questions like: How old are you? Have you ever been pregnant? Do you have a partner? Does doing this research turn you off having children? Does doing this research make you want to have children? What do you plan to do after you’ve finished your thesis? Similar to other researchers who discuss their interview experiences in self-reflexive pieces Edwards, Finch and Oakley, I found that by sharing some of my own personal experiences I was able to establish trust and develop rapport with the participants. Like Kasper I worked with the assumption that each interview is a collaborative and consensual enterprise among women. I focused on earning trust, displaying sensitivity and fairness, and showing support. The participants expressed genuine interest in my research and the findings it was generating, with most women keen to read any published findings from the research. Many participants asked to have a copy of their interview transcripts for posterity or to reflect on with friends or in future pregnancies. ‘Getting Personal’ Now that I am contemplating the extension of my research into the future I must think about how my position as a researcher has changed. As one of my key interests is the ways in which digital technologies impact on parenting I have to ask myself whether I will use this broad range of technologies myself, as a parent. If I do use these technologies, will I insert myself into my research asking questions about my own user experiences and considering whether my partner uses these technologies in a different way to myself? If so, how, and what are the implications of this? I also need to consider my child amongst this, as both a parent and a researcher. Am I comfortable with my child having a digital life from a young age? I have already contemplated this question and made the conscious decision not to discuss or mention my pregnancy on social media, Facebook in particular. This question will again be important when my partner and I make decisions around the different ways we choose to announce the birth of our first child. These questions will continue to be important to me as a parent in an increasingly digitalised world. Until I become a mother, (some time in the next five weeks) I believe I cannot answer these questions. Rather, this article functions as a sounding board, allowing me to begin contemplating these questions in my future dual role as a mother and a researcher. Becoming a mother will change my position as a researcher in other important ways. I will no longer be the inexperienced, childless researcher. I will continue to treat my participants as partners in my research but being a mother myself, intersubjectivity, “the acknowledgment of the reciprocal sharing of knowledge and experience between the researcher and the researched” (Shields and Dervin 67), will become all the more essential to my approach. In this way I would hope to continue to de-emphasise the conventional hierarchies and dichotomies of research by focusing on the dialectical relationship between myself and my research ‘partners’. It will be imperative that I not only listen to these women without judgement but that I also share the intricacies of my research project and my own experiences as a maternal subject. These women are the experts of their own lives (Kasper) and I am sure this research would benefit from their involvement from an early phase where they would be invited to share in the design of research questions and the collection and interpretation of results. This is particularly important when designing research on new technologies where the only experiences I can currently draw from are my own and perhaps those of friends, family and colleagues. Digital research methodologies are still in their infancy, as this special issue attests, and although research into the use of apps is growing, there continues to be little research into the user experiences of apps. Apps as Tools of Convenience? As noted above, apps create a “tidbitisation” of information (Johnson Maternal Devices), where information is convenient and accessible in small ‘tidbits’ that anyone can access anywhere, anytime on their smartphone. This is something I have already utilised during my pregnancy (checking symptoms, reading about baby’s development) and I am sure this will be useful for me as a new mum. I have also been using my smartphone for other baby-related resources such as gathering lists of lullabies and nursery rhymes. These few examples indicate that smartphones do offer a great number of conveniences to new parents. But, they could also appear worrisome – raising questions around smartphones as distractions from parenting or relying on smartphones to track health conditions or baby habits, and perhaps even the deferral of responsibility, for example, busy parents using apps to entertain children. At this stage we actually know very little about the user experience of apps for mothers and new parents and new research in this area needs to ask questions such as: Who uses apps and why? What are users paying attention to and what is ignored or ‘switched off’? Do push notifications actually work? Do they create a new form of responsibilisation and if so, what are the repercussions of this, particularly if these apps are directed towards women as new parents, rather than men? This last question is particularly important for a scholar such as myself in the field of Gender and Cultural Studies where questions of gender and gendering are often central to our research. I have found that, as apps continue to be developed at an alarming rate, those specific to parenting are, more often than not targeted to women rather than men. Those that are targeted to men are often patronising and poorly executed, lacking detailed information and emphasising gendered stereotypes (for examples, see Johnson Maternal Devices). This is important to note because I found in my study that app use constitutes part of the intimate relationship of parents-to-be and new parents. Male partners rarely read guidebooks or significant detail from other information sources and so apps played a role in their day-to-day gathering of knowledge, usually via their partner. Rather than reading a chapter of a book or googling a pregnancy symptom, quiet time chatting on the couch after work often included the sharing of information from apps or regular email updates on a variety of topics. Men used the same apps as women but this was usually on their partner’s phone, rather than their own. This raises another important question. How do we research indirect use of apps? Is this even possible? The obvious way to answer this question would be through the use of qualitative interviews. This is made difficult through the mere fact that we first must know who uses these apps indirectly before we recruit them into our research. Researching Digital Technologies through Discourse Analysis In my PhD the use of smartphones and apps only emerged as a theme of interest late into the research project. The constant mention of various apps during the interviews prompted me to examine a number of key pregnancy and parenting apps in terms of the discourses they mobilise and their functionality (Johnson Maternal Devices). As Dorothy Smith attests, we live in a textually mediated world. Pregnancy and parenting books, magazines, technologies such as apps and other forms of popular advice represent a mediated version of motherhood, parenthood and fatherhood. If these texts can influence and be influenced by patterns of parenting discourse then critical discourse analysis can contribute to an understanding of the ways in which mothering can be influenced or constructed by popular media and discourse. Thus, in my PhD research I applied discourse analysis to the study of apps. Discourse analysis examines how language constructs social phenomena and investigates the ways in which it produces certain social realities and expectations (Sunderland). Discourse analysis is valuable because of the questions it enables us to ask about the constructed nature of our experiences and the texts that we are exposed to. Smartphone apps, social media and the Internet are growing resources for women in the transition to first-time motherhood. These technologies require further research as they represent a particular way for women to engage with the neoliberal project of responsibilisation. Targeting first-time mothers and parents research allows access to users of digital technologies who most likely have a vested interest (i.e. the health and development of their children) in understanding the way new technologies are increasingly intervening in our everyday lives. Maternal subjects are likely to view such technologies as a means to monitor her pregnancies and her children’s health and development. A central aim of my research is to render visible the enduring nature of ideologies and expectations of motherhood – which include the ways in which women as mothers are responsibilised – and the ways in which different variants of mothering are inserted in new ways into tools of self-help, social media and new ‘pushy’ technologies (apps). This will reveal how discourse is constituted by mothers and how mothering discourse can work to constitute particular maternal practices and beliefs or expectations. Thus I argue that discourse analysis is central to the research of pregnancy/parenting apps. My research demonstrates how women draw on new technologies in rebellious, ironic or affirmative ways to enact different technologies of the self (Foucault). The texts can be viewed as disciplinary in a Foucauldian sense, and by analysing these different forms of advice it is possible to provide an ongoing demonstration of the difficulty of complying with the various demands of motherhood. Women’s interactions with a range of parenting discourses and attempts to create their own version of motherhood can be seen to constitute one component of the work of motherhood and the ways women practice and enact motherhood (this is discussed in detail in an article currently under review). Although researching the potential affordances of apps is important this research must be connected to user experience. In other words, are apps used in the ways we think they are? In order to move forward and ask questions such as: “Are women responsibilised and their conduct shaped in a new way via their smartphones in what I have characterised ‘push responsibilisation’?” we must move beyond discourse analysis and ask questions that focus on the user experience of apps. It would be useful to draw on existing research in other fields, which have started to develop a range of ethnographic methods and tools for research into computer-user interactions, applications and social media including Tinder, Grindr and Instagram. Other questions I wish to include in a future empirical study include: Who adopts these apps and why? Are there variations in the ways different generational users adopt apps? Who rejects these apps and why? Are push notifications ignored, considered obtrusive or do they prompt specific practices or actions? How are apps used? How do apps maintain already existing gender inequalities in parenting? In asking these questions I believe we could also begin to interrogate a much broader question, that is: “What can the use of devices during this particular ‘life stage’ tell us more broadly about mapping, tracking and quantifying the self?” This brings me again to the central question in this piece: How do we do this research? In this article I have not attempted to answer this question but rather to provoke discussion and encourage debate. In particular, I would like to consider new research methodologies which have the potential to extend our research capabilities and those whom we are able to involve in our research. An example would be conducting research online through pre-existing discussion forums. I have attended numerous academic events in the past two years where academics have started to ponder these questions more generally but my hope is that this article can act as encouragement for further debate. References Edwards, Rosalind. “Connecting Method and Epistimology: A White Woman Interviewing Black Women.” Women's Studies International Forum 13 (1990): 477-490. Finch, Janet. “It’s great to have someone to talk to”: The Ethics and Politics of Interviewing Women. Social Researching: Politics, Problems, Practice. Eds. Colin Bell and Helen Roberts. London: Routledge, 1984. Foucault, Michel. "Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault." Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault. Eds. Luther Martin, Huck Gutman, and Patrick Hutton. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1998. Horn, Rebecca. “Reflexivity in Placement: Women Interviewing Women.” Feminism & Psychology 5 (1995): 94-98. Johnson, Sophia. “On a Tightrope? Technologies of Motherhood in Neoliberal Society.” PhD Thesis. Sydney: Department of Gender and Cultural Studies, University of Sydney, 2014. Johnson, Sophia. “‘Maternal Devices’, Social Media and the Self-Management of Pregnancy, Mothering and Child Health”. Societies 4.2 (2014): 330-350. Johnson, Sophia. “‘Intimate Mothering Publics’: Comparing Face-To-Face Support Groups and Internet Use for Women Seeking Information and Advice in the Transition to First-Time Motherhood.” Culture, Health and Sexuality: An International Journal for Research, Intervention and Care 17.2 (2015): 237-251. Kasper, Anne. “A Feminist, Qualitative Methodology: A Study of Women with Breast Cancer.” Qualitative Sociology 17.3 (1994): 263-281. Oakley, Ann. “Interviewing Women: A Contradiction in Terms.” Doing Feminist Research. Ed. Helen Roberts. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981. Shields, Vickie Rutledge, and Brenda Dervin. “Sense-Making in Feminist Social Science Research: A Call to Enlarge the Methodological Options of Feminist Studies.” Women's Studies International Forum 16.1 (1993): 65-81. Smith, Dorothy. The Everyday World as Problematic: A Feminist Sociology. Boston: Northern University Press, 1987. Sunderland, J. “'Parenting' or 'Mothering'? The Case of Modern Childcare Magazines.” Discourse & Society 17.4 (2006): 503-528.

Our thesis is that the city’s ambience is now an unstable dialectic in which we are watchers and watched, mirrored and refracted in a landscape of iPhone auteurs, eTags, CCTV and sousveillance. Embrace ambience! Invoking Benjamin’s spirit, this article does not seek to limit understanding through restriction to a particular theme or theoretical construct (Buck-Morss 253). Instead, it offers snapshots of interactions at the dawn of the postmodern city. That bricolage also engages how people appropriate, manipulate, disrupt and divert urban spaces and strategies of power in their everyday life. Ambient information can both liberate and disenfranchise the individual. This article asks whether our era’s dialectics result in a new personhood or merely restate the traditional spectacle of ‘bright lights, big city’. Does the virtualized city result in ambient anomie and satiation or in surprise, autonomy and serendipity? (Gumpert 36) Since the steam age, ambience has been characterised in terms of urban sound, particularly the alienation attributable to the individual’s experience as a passive receptor of a cacophony of sounds – now soft, now loud, random and recurrent–from the hubbub of crowds, the crash and grind of traffic, the noise of industrial processes and domestic activity, factory whistles, fire alarms, radio, television and gramophones (Merchant 111; Thompson 6). In the age of the internet, personal devices such as digital cameras and iPhones, and urban informatics such as CCTV networks and e-Tags, ambience is interactivity, monitoring and signalling across multiple media, rather than just sound. It is an interactivity in which watchers observe the watched observing them and the watched reshape the fabric of virtualized cities merely by traversing urban precincts (Hillier 295; De Certeau 163). It is also about pervasive although unevenly distributed monitoring of individuals, using sensors that are remote to the individual (for example cameras or tag-readers mounted above highways) or are borne by the individual (for example mobile phones or badges that systematically report the location to a parent, employer or sex offender register) (Holmes 176; Savitch 130). That monitoring reflects what Doel and Clark characterized as a pervasive sense of ambient fear in the postmodern city, albeit fear that like much contemporary anxiety is misplaced–you are more at risk from intimates than from strangers, from car accidents than terrorists or stalkers–and that is ahistorical (Doel 13; Scheingold 33). Finally, it is about cooption, with individuals signalling their identity through ambient advertising: wearing tshirts, sweatshirts, caps and other apparel that display iconic faces such as Obama and Monroe or that embody corporate imagery such as the Nike ‘Swoosh’, Coca-Cola ‘Ribbon’, Linux Penguin and Hello Kitty feline (Sayre 82; Maynard 97). In the postmodern global village much advertising is ambient, rather than merely delivered to a device or fixed on a billboard. Australian cities are now seas of information, phantasmagoric environments in which the ambient noise encountered by residents and visitors comprises corporate signage, intelligent traffic signs, displays at public transport nodes, shop-window video screens displaying us watching them, and a plethora of personal devices showing everything from the weather to snaps of people in the street or neighborhood satellite maps. They are environments through which people traverse both as persons and abstractions, virtual presences on volatile digital maps and in online social networks. Spectacle, Anomie or Personhood The spectacular city of modernity is a meme of communication, cultural and urban development theory. It is spectacular in the sense that of large, artificial, even sublime. It is also spectacular because it is built around the gaze, whether the vistas of Hausmann’s boulevards, the towers of Manhattan and Chicago, the shopfront ‘sea of light’ and advertising pillars noted by visitors to Weimar Berlin or the neon ‘neo-baroque’ of Las Vegas (Schivelbusch 114; Fritzsche 164; Ndalianis 535). In the year 2010 it aspires to 2020 vision, a panoptic and panspectric gaze on the part of governors and governed alike (Kullenberg 38). In contrast to the timelessness of Heidegger’s hut and the ‘fixity’ of rural backwaters, spectacular cities are volatile domains where all that is solid continues to melt into air with the aid of jackhammers and the latest ‘new media’ potentially result in a hypereality that make it difficult to determine what is real and what is not (Wark 22; Berman 19). The spectacular city embodies a dialectic. It is anomic because it induces an alienation in the spectator, a fatigue attributable to media satiation and to a sense of being a mere cog in a wheel, a disempowered and readily-replaceable entity that is denied personhood–recognition as an autonomous individual–through subjection to a Fordist and post-Fordist industrial discipline or the more insidious imprisonment of being ‘a housewife’, one ant in a very large ant hill (Dyer-Witheford 58). People, however, are not automatons: they experience media, modernity and urbanism in different ways. The same attributes that erode the selfhood of some people enhance the autonomy and personhood of others. The spectacular city, now a matrix of digits, information flows and opportunities, is a realm in which people can subvert expectations and find scope for self-fulfillment, whether by wearing a hoodie that defeats CCTV or by using digital technologies to find and associate with other members of stigmatized affinity groups. One person’s anomie is another’s opportunity. Ambience and Virtualisation Eighty years after Fritz Lang’s Metropolis forecast a cyber-sociality, digital technologies are resulting in a ‘virtualisation’ of social interactions and cities. In post-modern cityscapes, the space of flows comprises an increasing number of electronic exchanges through physically disjointed places (Castells 2002). Virtualisation involves supplementation or replacement of face-to-face contact with hypersocial communication via new media, including SMS, email, blogging and Facebook. In 2010 your friends (or your boss or a bully) may always be just a few keystrokes away, irrespective of whether it is raining outside, there is a public transport strike or the car is in for repairs (Hassan 69; Baron 215). Virtualisation also involves an abstraction of bodies and physical movements, with the information that represents individual identities or vehicles traversing the virtual spaces comprised of CCTV networks (where viewers never encounter the person or crowd face to face), rail ticketing systems and road management systems (x e-Tag passed by this tag reader, y camera logged a specific vehicle onto a database using automated number-plate recognition software) (Wood 93; Lyon 253). Surveillant Cities Pervasive anxiety is a permanent and recurrent feature of urban experience. Often navigated by an urgency to control perceived disorder, both physically and through cultivated dominant theory (early twentieth century gendered discourses to push women back into the private sphere; ethno-racial closure and control in the Black Metropolis of 1940s Chicago), history is punctuated by attempts to dissolve public debate and infringe minority freedoms (Wilson 1991). In the Post-modern city unprecedented technological capacity generates a totalizing media vector whose plausible by-product is the perception of an ambient menace (Wark 3). Concurrent faith in technology as a cost-effective mechanism for public management (policing, traffic, planning, revenue generation) has resulted in emergence of the surveillant city. It is both a social and architectural fabric whose infrastructure is dotted with sensors and whose people assume that they will be monitored by private/public sector entities and directed by interactive traffic management systems – from electronic speed signs and congestion indicators through to rail schedule displays –leveraging data collected through those sensors. The fabric embodies tensions between governance (at its crudest, enforcement of law by police and their surrogates in private security services) and the soft cage of digital governmentality, with people being disciplined through knowledge that they are being watched and that the observation may be shared with others in an official or non-official shaming (Parenti 51; Staples 41). Encounters with a railway station CCTV might thus result in exhibition of the individual in court or on broadcast television, whether in nightly news or in a ‘reality tv’ crime expose built around ‘most wanted’ footage (Jermyn 109). Misbehaviour by a partner might merely result in scrutiny of mobile phone bills or web browser histories (which illicit content has the partner consumed, which parts of cyberspace has been visited), followed by a visit to the family court. It might instead result in digital viligilantism, with private offences being named and shamed on electronic walls across the global village, such as Facebook. iPhone Auteurism Activists have responded to pervasive surveillance by turning the cameras on ‘the watchers’ in an exercise of ‘sousveillance’ (Bennett 13; Huey 158). That mirroring might involve the meticulous documentation, often using the same geospatial tools deployed by public/private security agents, of the location of closed circuit television cameras and other surveillance devices. One outcome is the production of maps identifying who is watching and where that watching is taking place. As a corollary, people with anxieties about being surveilled, with a taste for street theatre or a receptiveness to a new form of urban adventure have used those maps to traverse cities via routes along which they cannot be identified by cameras, tags and other tools of the panoptic sort, or to simply adopt masks at particular locations. In 2020 can anyone aspire to be a protagonist in V for Vendetta? (iSee) Mirroring might take more visceral forms, with protestors for example increasingly making a practice of capturing images of police and private security services dealing with marches, riots and pickets. The advent of 3G mobile phones with a still/video image capability and ongoing ‘dematerialisation’ of traditional video cameras (ie progressively cheaper, lighter, more robust, less visible) means that those engaged in political action can document interaction with authority. So can passers-by. That ambient imaging, turning the public gaze on power and thereby potentially redefining the ‘public’ (given that in Australia the community has been embodied by the state and discourse has been mediated by state-sanctioned media), poses challenges for media scholars and exponents of an invigorated civil society in which we are looking together – and looking at each other – rather than bowling alone. One challenge for consumers in construing ambient media is trust. Can we believe what we see, particularly when few audiences have forensic skills and intermediaries such as commercial broadcasters may privilege immediacy (the ‘breaking news’ snippet from participants) over context and verification. Social critics such as Baudelaire and Benjamin exalt the flaneur, the free spirit who gazed on the street, a street that was as much a spectacle as the theatre and as vibrant as the circus. In 2010 the same technologies that empower citizen journalism and foster a succession of velvet revolutions feed flaneurs whose streetwalking doesn’t extend beyond a keyboard and a modem. The US and UK have thus seen emergence of gawker services, with new media entrepreneurs attempting to build sustainable businesses by encouraging fans to report the location of celebrities (and ideally provide images of those encounters) for the delectation of people who are web surfing or receiving a tweet (Burns 24). In the age of ambient cameras, where the media are everywhere and nowhere (and micro-stock photoservices challenge agencies such as Magnum), everyone can join the paparazzi. Anyone can deploy that ambient surveillance to become a stalker. The enthusiasm with which fans publish sightings of celebrities will presumably facilitate attacks on bodies rather than images. Information may want to be free but so, inconveniently, do iconoclasts and practitioners of participatory panopticism (Dodge 431; Dennis 348). Rhetoric about ‘citizen journalism’ has been co-opted by ‘old media’, with national broadcasters and commercial enterprises soliciting still images and video from non-professionals, whether for free or on a commercial basis. It is a world where ‘journalists’ are everywhere and where responsibility resides uncertainly at the editorial desk, able to reject or accept offerings from people with cameras but without the industrial discipline formerly exercised through professional training and adherence to formal codes of practice. It is thus unsurprising that South Australia’s Government, echoed by some peers, has mooted anti-gawker legislation aimed at would-be auteurs who impede emergency services by stopping their cars to take photos of bushfires, road accidents or other disasters. The flipside of that iPhone auteurism is anxiety about the public gaze, expressed through moral panics regarding street photography and sexting. Apart from a handful of exceptions (notably photography in the Sydney Opera House precinct, in the immediate vicinity of defence facilities and in some national parks), Australian law does not prohibit ‘street photography’ which includes photographs or videos of streetscapes or public places. Despite periodic assertions that it is a criminal offence to take photographs of people–particularly minors–without permission from an official, parent/guardian or individual there is no general restriction on ambient photography in public spaces. Moral panics about photographs of children (or adults) on beaches or in the street reflect an ambient anxiety in which danger is associated with strangers and strangers are everywhere (Marr 7; Bauman 93). That conceptualisation is one that would delight people who are wholly innocent of Judith Butler or Andrea Dworkin, in which the gaze (ever pervasive, ever powerful) is tantamount to a violation. The reality is more prosaic: most child sex offences involve intimates, rather than the ‘monstrous other’ with the telephoto lens or collection of nastiness on his iPod (Cossins 435; Ingebretsen 190). Recognition of that reality is important in considering moves that would egregiously restrict legitimate photography in public spaces or happy snaps made by doting relatives. An ambient image–unposed, unpremeditated, uncoerced–of an intimate may empower both authors and subjects when little is solid and memory is fleeting. The same caution might usefully be applied in considering alarms about sexting, ie creation using mobile phones (and access by phone or computer monitor) of intimate images of teenagers by teenagers. Australian governments have moved to emulate their US peers, treating such photography as a criminal offence that can be conceptualized as child pornography and addressed through permanent inclusion in sex offender registers. Lifelong stigmatisation is inappropriate in dealing with naïve or brash 12 and 16 year olds who have been exchanging intimate images without an awareness of legal frameworks or an understanding of consequences (Shafron-Perez 432). Cameras may be everywhere among the e-generation but legal knowledge, like the future, is unevenly distributed. Digital Handcuffs Generations prior to 2008 lost themselves in the streets, gaining individuality or personhood by escaping the surveillance inherent in living at home, being observed by neighbours or simply surrounded by colleagues. Streets offered anonymity and autonomy (Simmel 1903), one reason why heterodox sexuality has traditionally been negotiated in parks and other beats and on kerbs where sex workers ply their trade (Dalton 375). Recent decades have seen a privatisation of those public spaces, with urban planning and digital technologies imposing a new governmentality on hitherto ambient ‘deviance’ and on voyeuristic-exhibitionist practice such as heterosexual ‘dogging’ (Bell 387). That governmentality has been enforced through mechanisms such as replacement of traditional public toilets with ‘pods’ that are conveniently maintained by global service providers such as Veolia (the unromantic but profitable rump of former media & sewers conglomerate Vivendi) and function as billboards for advertising groups such as JC Decaux. Faces encountered in the vicinity of the twenty-first century pissoir are thus likely to be those of supermodels selling yoghurt, low interest loans or sportsgear – the same faces sighted at other venues across the nation and across the globe. Visiting ‘the mens’ gives new meaning to the word ambience when you are more likely to encounter Louis Vuitton and a CCTV camera than George Michael. George’s face, or that of Madonna, Barack Obama, Kevin 07 or Homer Simpson, might instead be sighted on the tshirts or hoodies mentioned above. George’s music might also be borne on the bodies of people you see in the park, on the street, or in the bus. This is the age of ambient performance, taken out of concert halls and virtualised on iPods, Walkmen and other personal devices, music at the demand of the consumer rather than as rationed by concert managers (Bull 85). The cost of that ambience, liberation of performance from time and space constraints, may be a Weberian disenchantment (Steiner 434). Technology has also removed anonymity by offering digital handcuffs to employees, partners, friends and children. The same mobile phones used in the past to offer excuses or otherwise disguise the bearer’s movement may now be tied to an observer through location services that plot the person’s movement across Google Maps or the geospatial information of similar services. That tracking is an extension into the private realm of the identification we now take for granted when using taxis or logistics services, with corporate Australia for example investing in systems that allow accurate determination of where a shipment is located (on Sydney Harbour Bridge? the loading dock? accompanying the truck driver on unauthorized visits to the pub?) and a forecast of when it will arrive (Monmonier 76). Such technologies are being used on a smaller scale to enforce digital Fordism among the binary proletariat in corporate buildings and campuses, with ‘smart badges’ and biometric gateways logging an individual’s movement across institutional terrain (so many minutes in the conference room, so many minutes in the bathroom or lingering among the faux rainforest near the Vice Chancellery) (Bolt). Bright Lights, Blog City It is a truth universally acknowledged, at least by right-thinking Foucauldians, that modernity is a matter of coercion and anomie as all that is solid melts into air. If we are living in an age of hypersocialisation and hypercapitalism – movies and friends on tap, along with the panoptic sorting by marketers and pervasive scrutiny by both the ‘information state’ and public audiences (the million people or one person reading your blog) that is an inevitable accompaniment of the digital cornucopia–we might ask whether everyone is or should be unhappy. This article began by highlighting traditional responses to the bright lights, brashness and excitement of the big city. One conclusion might be that in 2010 not much has changed. Some people experience ambient information as liberating; others as threatening, productive of physical danger or of a more insidious anomie in which personal identity is blurred by an ineluctable electro-smog. There is disagreement about the professionalism (for which read ethics and inhibitions) of ‘citizen media’ and about a culture in which, as in the 1920s, audiences believe that they ‘own the image’ embodying the celebrity or public malefactor. Digital technologies allow you to navigate through the urban maze and allow officials, marketers or the hostile to track you. Those same technologies allow you to subvert both the governmentality and governance. You are free: Be ambient! References Baron, Naomi. Always On: Language in an Online and Mobile World. New York: Oxford UP, 2008. Bauman, Zygmunt. Liquid Modernity. Oxford: Polity Press, 2000. Bell, David. “Bodies, Technologies, Spaces: On ‘Dogging’.” Sexualities 9.4 (2006): 387-408. Bennett, Colin. The Privacy Advocates: Resisting the Spread of Surveillance. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2008. Berman, Marshall. All That Is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity. London: Verso, 2001. Bolt, Nate. “The Binary Proletariat.” First Monday 5.5 (2000). 25 Feb 2010 ‹http://131.193.153.231/www/issues/issue5_5/bolt/index.html›. Buck-Morss, Susan. The Dialectics of Seeing: Walter Benjamin and the Arcades Project. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1991. Bull, Michael. Sounding Out the City: Personal Stereos and the Management of Everyday Life. Oxford: Berg, 2003. Bull, Michael. Sound Moves: iPod Culture and the Urban Experience. London: Routledge, 2008 Burns, Kelli. Celeb 2.0: How Social Media Foster Our Fascination with Popular Culture. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2009. Castells, Manuel. “The Urban Ideology.” The Castells Reader on Cities and Social Theory. Ed. Ida Susser. Malden: Blackwell, 2002. 34-70. Cossins, Anne, Jane Goodman-Delahunty, and Kate O’Brien. “Uncertainty and Misconceptions about Child Sexual Abuse: Implications for the Criminal Justice System.” Psychiatry, Psychology and the Law 16.4 (2009): 435-452. Dalton, David. “Policing Outlawed Desire: ‘Homocriminality’ in Beat Spaces in Australia.” Law & Critique 18.3 (2007): 375-405. De Certeau, Michel. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California P, 1984. Dennis, Kingsley. “Keeping a Close Watch: The Rise of Self-Surveillance and the Threat of Digital Exposure.” The Sociological Review 56.3 (2008): 347-357. Dodge, Martin, and Rob Kitchin. “Outlines of a World Coming into Existence: Pervasive Computing and the Ethics of Forgetting.” Environment & Planning B: Planning & Design 34.3 (2007): 431-445. Doel, Marcus, and David Clarke. “Transpolitical Urbanism: Suburban Anomaly and Ambient Fear.” Space & Culture 1.2 (1998): 13-36. Dyer-Witheford, Nick. Cyber-Marx: Cycles and Circuits of Struggle in High Technology Capitalism. Champaign: U of Illinois P, 1999. Fritzsche, Peter. Reading Berlin 1900. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1998. Gumpert, Gary, and Susan Drucker. “Privacy, Predictability or Serendipity and Digital Cities.” Digital Cities II: Computational and Sociological Approaches. Berlin: Springer, 2002. 26-40. Hassan, Robert. The Information Society. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2008. Hillier, Bill. “Cities as Movement Economies.” Intelligent Environments: Spatial Aspects of the Information Revolution. Ed. Peter Drioege. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1997. 295-342. Holmes, David. “Cybercommuting on an Information Superhighway: The Case of Melbourne’s CityLink.” The Cybercities Reader. Ed. Stephen Graham. London: Routledge, 2004. 173-178. Huey, Laura, Kevin Walby, and Aaron Doyle. “Cop Watching in the Downtown Eastside: Exploring the Use of CounterSurveillance as a Tool of Resistance.” Surveillance and Security: Technological Politics and Power in Everyday Life. Ed. Torin Monahan. London: Routledge, 2006. 149-166. Ingebretsen, Edward. At Stake: Monsters and the Rhetoric of Fear in Public Culture. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2001. iSee. “Now More Than Ever”. 20 Feb 2010 ‹http://www.appliedautonomy.com/isee/info.html›. Jackson, Margaret, and Julian Ligertwood. "Identity Management: Is an Identity Card the Solution for Australia?” Prometheus 24.4 (2006): 379-387. Jermyn, Deborah. Crime Watching: Investigating Real Crime TV. London: IB Tauris, 2007. Kullenberg, Christopher. “The Social Impact of IT: Surveillance and Resistance in Present-Day Conflicts.” FlfF-Kommunikation 1 (2009): 37-40. Lyon, David. Surveillance as Social Sorting: Privacy, Risk and Digital Discrimination. London: Routledge, 2003. Marr, David. The Henson Case. Melbourne: Text, 2008. Maynard, Margaret. Dress and Globalisation. Manchester: Manchester UP, 2004. Merchant, Carolyn. The Columbia Guide to American Environmental History. New York: Columbia UP, 2002. Monmonier, Mark. “Geolocation and Locational Privacy: The ‘Inside’ Story on Geospatial Tracking’.” Privacy and Technologies of Identity: A Cross-disciplinary Conversation. Ed. Katherine Strandburg and Daniela Raicu. Berlin: Springer, 2006. 75-92. Ndalianis, Angela. “Architecture of the Senses: Neo-Baroque Entertainment Spectacles.” Rethinking Media Change: The Aesthetics of Tradition. Ed. David Thorburn and Henry Jenkins. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2004. 355-374. Parenti, Christian. The Soft Cage: Surveillance in America. New York: Basic Books, 2003. Sayre, Shay. “T-shirt Messages: Fortune or Folly for Advertisers.” Advertising and Popular Culture: Studies in Variety and Versatility. Ed. Sammy Danna. New York: Popular Press, 1992. 73-82. Savitch, Henry. Cities in a Time of Terror: Space, Territory and Local Resilience. Armonk: Sharpe, 2008. Scheingold, Stuart. The Politics of Street Crime: Criminal Process and Cultural Obsession. Philadephia: Temple UP, 1992. Schivelbusch, Wolfgang. Disenchanted Night: The Industrialization of Light in the Nineteenth Century. Berkeley: U of California Press, 1995. Shafron-Perez, Sharon. “Average Teenager or Sex Offender: Solutions to the Legal Dilemma Caused by Sexting.” John Marshall Journal of Computer & Information Law 26.3 (2009): 431-487. Simmel, Georg. “The Metropolis and Mental Life.” Individuality and Social Forms. Ed. Donald Levine. Chicago: University of Chicago P, 1971. Staples, William. Everyday Surveillance: Vigilance and Visibility in Postmodern Life. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2000. Steiner, George. George Steiner: A Reader. New York: Oxford UP, 1987. Thompson, Emily. The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America. Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2004. Wark, Mackenzie. Virtual Geography: Living with Global Media Events. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1994. Wilson, Elizabeth. The Sphinx in the City: Urban Life, the Control of Disorder and Women. Berkeley: University of California P, 1991. Wood, David. “Towards Spatial Protocol: The Topologies of the Pervasive Surveillance Society.” Augmenting Urban Spaces: Articulating the Physical and Electronic City. Eds. Allesandro Aurigi and Fiorella de Cindio. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008. 93-106.

Introduction Children are beginning to use digital technologies at younger and younger ages. The emerging trend of very young children (babies, toddlers and pre-schoolers) using Internet connected devices, especially touch screen tablets and smartphones, has elicited polarising opinions from early childhood experts. At present there is little actual research about the risks or benefits of tablet and smartphone use by very young children. Current usage recommendations, based on research into passive television watching which claims that screen time is detrimental, is in conflict with advice from education experts and app developers who commend interactive screen time as engaging and educational. Guidelines from the health professions typically advise strict time limits on very young children’s screen-time. Based for the most part on policy developed by the American Academy of Paediatrics, it is usually recommended that children under two have no screen time at all (Brown), and children over this age have no more than two hours a day (Strasburger, et al.). On the other hand, early childhood education guidelines promote the development of digital literacy skills (Department of Education). Further, education-based research indicates that access to computers and the Internet in the preschool years is associated with overall educational achievement (Bittman et al.; Cavanaugh et al; Judge et al; Neumann). The US based National Association for Education of Young Children’s position statement on technology for zero to eight year-olds declares that “when used intentionally and appropriately, technology and interactive media are effective tools to support learning and development” (NAEYC). This article discusses the notion of Digitods—a name for those children born since the introduction of the iPhone in 2007 who have ready access to touchscreen technologies since birth. It reports on the limited availability of evidence-based research about these children’s ICT use concluding that current research and recommendations are not grounded in the everyday life of very young children and their families. The article then reports on the beginnings of a research project funded by the Australian Research Council entitled Toddlers and Tablets: exploring the risks and benefits 0-5s face online. This research project recognises that at this stage it is parents who “are the real experts in their toddlers’ use of screen technologies. Accordingly, the project’s methodological approach draws on parents, pre-schoolers and their families as communities of practice in the construction of social meaning around toddlers’ use of touch screen technology. Digitods In 2000 Bill Gates introduced the notion of Generation I to describe the first cohort of children raised with the Internet as a reality in their lives. They are those born after the 1990s and will, in most cases; have no memory of life without the Net. [...] Generation I will be able to conceive of the Internet’s possibilities far more profoundly than we can today. This new generation will become agents of change as the limits of the Internet expand to include educational, scientific, and business applications that we cannot even imagine. (Gates)Digitods, on the other hand, is a term that has been used in education literature (Leathers et al.) to describe those children born after the introduction of the iPhone in 2007. These children often begin their lives with ready access to the Internet via easily usable touch screen devices, which could have been designed with toddlers’ touch and swipe movements in mind. Not only are they the youngest group of children to actively engage with the Internet they are the first group to grow up with a range of mobile Internet devices (Leathers et al.). The difference between Digitods and Gates’s Generation I is that Digitods are the first pre-verbal, non-ambulant infants to have ready access to digital technologies. Somewhere around the age of 10 months to fourteen months a baby learns to point with his or her forefinger. At this stage the child is ready to swipe and tap a touch screen (Leathers et al.). This is in contrast to laptops and PCs given that very young children often need assistance to use a mouse or keyboard. The mobility of touch screen devices allows very young children to play at the kitchen table, in the bedroom or on a car trip. These mobile devices have, of course, a myriad of mobile apps to go with them. These apps create an immediacy of access for infants and pre-schoolers who do not need to open a web browser to find their favourite sites. In the lives of these children it seems that it has always been possible to touch and swipe their way into games, books and creative and communicative experiences (Holloway et al. 149). The interactivity of most pre-school apps, as opposed to more passive screen activities such as watching television shows or videos (both offline or online), requires toddlers and pre-schoolers to pay careful attention, think about things and act purposefully (Leathers et al.). It is this interactivity which is the main point of difference, one which holds the potential to engage and educate our youngest children. It should be noted within this discussion about Digitods that, while the trope Digital Natives tends to homogenise an entire generation, the authors do not assume that all children born today are Digitods by default. Many children do not have the same privileged opportunities as others, or the (parental) cultural capital, to enable access, ease of use and digital skill development. In addition to this it is not implied that Digitods will be more tech savvy than their older siblings. The term is used more to describe and distinguish those children who have digital access almost since birth—in order to differentiate or tease out everyday family practices around these children’s ICT use and the possible risks and benefits this access affords babies, toddlers and pre-schoolers. While the term Digital Native has also been criticised as being a white middle class phenomenon this is not necessarily the case with Digitods. In the Southeast Asia and the Pacific region developed countries like Japan, Korea, New Zealand and Singapore have extremely high rates of touchscreen use by very young children (Child Sciences; Jie; Goh; Unantenne). Other countries such as the Philippines and Indonesia have moved to a high smart phone usage by very young children while at the same time have only nascent ICT access and instruction within their education systems (Unantenne). The Digitod Parent Parents of Digitods are usually experienced Internet users themselves, and many are comfortable with their children using these child-friendly touch screen devices (Findahl). Digital technologies are integral to their everyday lives, often making daily life easier and improving communication with family and friends, even during the high pressure parenting years of raising toddlers and pre-schoolers. Even though many parents and caregivers are enabling very young children’s use of touch screen technologies, they are also concerned about the changes they are making. This is because very young children’s use of touch screen devices “has become another area where they fear possible criticism and in which their parental practices risk negative evaluation by others” (Holloway et al). The tensions between expert advice regarding young children’s screen-time and parents’ and caregivers’ own judgments are also being played out online. Parenting blogs, online magazines and discussion groups are all joining in the debate: On the one hand, parents want their children to swim expertly in the digital stream that they will have to navigate all their lives; on the other hand, they fear that too much digital media, too early, will sink them. Parents end up treating tablets like precision surgical instruments, gadgets that might perform miracles for their child’s IQ and help him win some nifty robotics competition—but only if they are used just so. (Rosin)Thus, with over 80 000 children’s apps marketed as educational in the Apple App Store alone, parents can find it difficult to choose apps that are worth purchasing (Yelland). Nonetheless, recent research regarding Australian children shows that three to five year olds who access touch screen devices will typically have five or more specific apps to choose from (5.23 on average) (Neumann). With little credible evidence or considered debate, parents have been left to make their own choices about the pros and cons of their young children’s access to touch screens. Nonetheless, one immediate benefit that comes to mind is toddlers and pre-schoolers video chatting with dispersed family member—due to increased globalisation, guest worker arrangements, FIFO (fly-in fly-out) workforces and family separation or divorce. Such clear benefits around sociability and youngsters’ connection with significant others make previous screen-related guidelines out of date and no longer contextually relevant. Little Research Attention Family ownership of tablet devices as well as touch screen phones has risen dramatically in the last five years. With very young children being loaned these technologies by mum or dad, and a tendency in Australia to rely on market-orientated research regarding ownership and usage, there is very little knowledge about touch screen usage rates for very young Australian children. UK and US usage figures indicate that over the last few years there has been a five-fold increase in tablet uptake by zero to eight year olds (Ofcom; Rideout). Although large scale, comparative Australian data is not available, previous research regarding older children indicates that Australia is similar to high use countries like some Scandinavian nations and the UK (Green et al.). In addition to this, two small research projects in Australia, with under 160 participant families each, indicate that two thirds of these children (0-5) use touchscreen devices (Neumann; Coenenna et. al.). Beyond usage figures, there is also very limited evidence-based research about very young children’s app use. Interactive technologies available via touch screen technologies have been available domestically for a very short time. Consequently, “valid scientific research has not been completed and replicated due to [the lack of] available time” (Leathers el al. 129) and longitudinal studies which rely on an intervention group (in this case exposure to children’s apps) and a control group (no exposure) are even fewer and more time-consuming. Interestingly, researchers have revisited the issue of passive screen viewing. A recent 2015 review of previous 2007 research, which linked babies watching videos with poor language development, has found that there was statistical and methodological issues with the 2007 study and that there are no strong inferences to be drawn between media exposure and language development (Ferguson and Donellan). Thus, there seems to be no conclusive evidence-based research on which to inform parents and educators about the possible downside or benefits of touch screen use. Nonetheless, early childhood experts have been quick to weigh in on the possible effects of screen usage, some providing restrictive guidelines and recommendations, with others advocating the use of interactive apps for very young children for their educational value. This knowledge-gap disguises what is actually happening in the lives of real Australian families. Due to the lack of local data, as well as worldwide research, it is essential that Australian researchers obtain a comprehensive understanding about actual behaviour around touch screen use in the lives of children aged between zero and five and their families. Beginning Research While research into very young children’s touch screen use is beginning to take place, few results have been published. When researching two to three year olds’ learning from interactive versus non-interactive videos Kirkorian, Choi and Pempek found that “toddlers may learn more from interactive media than from non-interactive video” (Kirkorian et al). This means that the use of interactive apps on touch screen devices may hold a greater potential for learning than passive video or television viewing for children in this age range. Another study considered the degree to which the young children could navigate to and use apps on touch screen devices by observing and analysing YouTube videos of infants and young children using touch screens (Hourcade et al.). It was found that between the ages of 12 months and 17 months the children filmed seemed to begin to “make meaningful use of the tablets [and] more than 90 per cent of children aged two [had] reached this level of ability” (1923). The kind of research mentioned above, usually the preserve of psychologists, paediatricians and some educators, does not, however, ground very young children’s use in their domestic context—in the spaces and with those people with whom most touch screen usage takes place. With funding from the Australian Research Council Australian, Irish and UK researchers are about to adopt a media studies (domestication) approach to comprehensively investigate digital media use in the everyday lives of very young children. This Australian-based research project positions very young children’s touch screen use within the family and will help provide an understanding of the everyday knowledge and strategies that this cohort of technology users (very young children and their parents) have already developed—in the knowledge vacuum left by the swift appropriation and incorporation of these new media technologies into the lives of families with very young children. Whilst using a conventional social constructionist perspective, the project will also adopt a co-creation of knowledge approach. The co-creation of knowledge approach (Fong) has links with the communities of practice literature (Wegner) and recognises that parents, care-givers and the children themselves are the current experts in this field in terms of the everyday uses of these technologies by very young children. Families’ everyday discourse and practices regarding their children’s touch screen use do not necessarily work through obvious power hierarchies (via expert opinions), but rather through a process of meaning making where they shape their own understandings and attitudes through experience and shared talk within their own everyday family communities of practice. This Toddlers and Tablets research is innovative in many ways. It seeks to capture the enthusiasm of young children’s digital interactions and to pioneer new ways of ‘beginnings’ researching with very young children, as well as with their parents. The researchers will work with parents and children in their broad domestic contexts (including in and out-of-home activities, and grandparental and wider-family involvement) to co-create knowledge about young children’s digital technologies and the social contexts in which these technologies are used. Aspects of these interactions, such as interviews and observations of everyday digital interactions will be recorded (audio and video respectively). In addition to this, data collected from media commentary, policy debates, research publications and learned articles from other disciplinary traditions will be interrogated to see if there are correlations, contrasts, trends or synergies between parents’ construction of meaning, public commentary and current research. Critical discourse tools and methods (Chouliaraki and Fairclough) will be used to analyse verbatim transcripts, video, and all written materials. Conclusion Very young children are uniquely dependent upon others for the basic necessities of life and for the tools they need, and will need to develop, to claim their place in the world. Given the ubiquitous role played by digital media in the lives of their parents and other caregivers it would be a distortion of everyday life for children to be excluded from the technologies that are routinely used to connect with other people and with information. In the same way that adults use digital media to renew and strengthen social and emotional bonds across distance, so young children delight in ‘Facetime’ and other technologies that connect them audio-visually with friends and family members who are not physically co-present. Similarly, a very short time spent in the company of toddlers using touch screens is sufficient to demonstrate the sheer delight that these young infants have in developing their sense of agency and autonomy (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXV-yaFmQNk). Media, communications and cultural studies are beginning to claim a space for evidence based policy drawn from everyday activities in real life contexts. Research into the beginnings of digital life, with families who are beginning to find a way to introduce these technologies to the youngest generation, integrating them within social and emotional repertoires, may prove to be the start of new understandings into the communication skills of the preverbal and preliterate young people whose technology preferences will drive future development – with their parents likely trying to keep pace. Acknowledgment This research is supported under Australia Research Council’s Discovery Projects funding scheme (project number DP150104734). References Bittman, Michael, et al. "Digital Natives? New and Old Media and Children's Outcomes." Australian Journal of Education 55.2 (2011): 161-75. Brown, Ari. "Media Use by Children Younger than 2 Years." Pediatrics 128.5 (2011): 1040-45. Burr, Vivien. Social Constructionism. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 2003. Cavanaugh, Cathy, et al. "The Effects of Distance Education on K–12 Student Outcomes: A Meta-Analysis." Naperville, Ill.: Learning Point Associates, 2004. 5 Mar. 2009 ‹http://www.ncrel.org/tech/distance/index.html›. Child Sciences and Parenting Research Office. Survey of Media Use by Children and Parents (Summary). Tokyo: Benesse Educational Research and Development Institute, 2014. Coenena, Pieter, Erin Howiea, Amity Campbella, and Leon Strakera. Mobile Touch Screen Device Use among Young Australian Children–First Results from a National Survey. Proceedings 19th Triennial Congress of the IEA. 2015. Chouliaraki, Lilie and Norman Fairclough. Discourse in Late Modernity: Rethinking Critical Discourse Analysis. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 1999. Department of Education. "Belonging, Being and Becoming: The Early Years Learning Framework for Australia." Australian Government, 2009. Ferguson, Christopher J., and M. Brent Donnellan. "Is the Association between Children’s Baby Video Viewing and Poor Language Development Robust? A Reanalysis of Zimmerman, Christakis, and Meltzoff (2007)." Developmental Psychology 50.1 (2014): 129. Findahl, Olle. Swedes and the Internet 2013. Stockholm: The Internet Infrastructure Foundation, 2013. Fong, Patrick S.W. "Co-Creation of Knowledge by Multidisciplinary Project Teams." Management of Knowledge in Project Environments. Eds. E. Love, P. Fong, and Z. Irani. Burlington, MA: Elsevier, 2005. 41-56. Gates, Bill. "Enter 'Generation I': The Responsibility to Provide Access for All to the Most Incredible Learning Tool Ever Created." Instructor 109.6 (2000): 98. Goh, Wendy W.L., Susanna Bay, and Vivian Hsueh-Hua Chen. "Young School Children’s Use of Digital Devices and Parental Rules." Telematics and Informatics 32.4 (2015): 787-95. Green, Lelia, et al. "Risks and Safety for Australian Children on the Internet: Full Findings from the AU Kids Online Survey of 9-16 Year Olds and Their Parents." Cultural Science Journal 4.1 (2011): 1-73. Holloway, Donell, Lelia Green, and Carlie Love. "'It's All about the Apps': Parental Mediation of Pre-Schoolers' Digital Lives." Media International Australia 153 (2014): 148-56. Hourcade, Juan Pablo, Sarah Mascher, David Wu, and Luiza Pantoja. Look, My Baby Is Using an iPad! An Analysis of YouTube Videos of Infants and Toddlers Using Tablets. Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 2015. Jie S.H. "ICT Use Statistics of Households and Individuals in Korea." 10th World Telecommunication/ICT Indicators Meeting (WTIM-12). Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA), 25-7 Sep. 2012.Judge, Sharon, Kathleen Puckett, and Sherry Mee Bell. "Closing the Digital Divide: Update from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study." The Journal of Educational Research 100.1 (2006): 52-60. Kirkorian, H., K. Choi, and Pempek. "Toddlers' Word Learning from Contingent and Non-Contingent Video on Touchscreens." Child Development (in press). Leathers, Heather, Patti Summers, and Desollar. Toddlers on Technology: A Parents' Guide. Illinois: AuthorHouse, 2013. NAEYC. Technology and Interactive Media as Tools in Early Childhood Programs Serving Children from Birth through Age 8 [Position Statement]. Washington: National Association for the Education of Young Children, the Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children’s Media at Saint Vincent College, 2012. Neumann, Michelle M. "An Examination of Touch Screen Tablets and Emergent Literacy in Australian Pre-School Children." Australian Journal of Education 58.2 (2014): 109-22. Ofcom. Children and Parents: Media Use and Attitudes Report. London, 2013. Rideout, Victoria. Zero to Eight: Children’s Media Use in America 2013. San Francisco: Common Sense Media, 2013. Rosin, Hanna. "The Touch-Screen Generation." The Atlantic, 20 Apr. 2013. Strasburger, Victor C., et al. "Children, Adolescents, and the Media." Pediatrics 132.5 (2013): 958-61. Unantenne, Nalika. Mobile Device Usage among Young Kids: A Southeast Asia Study. Singapore: The Asian Parent and Samsung Kids Time, 2014. Wenger, Etienne. Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Wenger, Etienne. "Communities of Practice and Social Learning Systems." Organization 7.2 (2000): 225-46. Yelland, Nicola. "Which Apps Are Educational and Why? It’s in the Eye of the Beholder." The Conversation 13 July 2015. 16 Aug. 2015 ‹http://theconversation.com/which-apps-are-educational-and-why-its-in-the-eye-of-the-beholder-37968›.

Introduction It has frequently been noted that ICTs and social networking applications have blurred the once-clear boundary between work, leisure and entertainment, just as they have collapsed the distinction between public and private space. While each individual has a sense of what “home” means, both in terms of personal experience and more conceptually, the following three examples of online interaction (based on participants’ interest, or involvement, in activities traditionally associated with the home: pet care, craft and cooking) suggest that the utilisation of online communication technologies can lead to refined and extended definitions of what “home” is. These examples show how online communication can assist in meeting the basic human needs for love, companionship, shelter and food – needs traditionally supplied by the home environment. They also provide individuals with a considerably expanded range of opportunities for personal expression and emotional connection, as well as creative and commercial production, than that provided by the purely physical (and, no doubt, sometimes isolated and isolating) domestic environment. In this way, these case studies demonstrate the interplay and melding of physical and virtual “home” as domestic practices leach from the most private spaces of the physical home into the public space of the Internet (for discussion, see Gorman-Murray, Moss, and Rose). At the same time, online interaction can assert an influence on activity within the physical space of the home, through the sharing of advice about, and modeling of, domestic practices and processes. A Dog’s (Virtual) Life The first case study primarily explores the role of online communities in the formation and expression of affective values and personal identity – as traditionally happens in the domestic environment. Garber described the 1990s as “the decade of the dog” (20), citing a spate of “new anthropomorphic” (22) dog books, Internet “dog chat” sites, remakes of popular classics such as Lassie Come Home, dog friendly urban amenities, and the meteoric rise of services for pampered pets (28-9). Loving pets has become a lifestyle and culture, witnessed and commodified in Pet Superstores as well as in dog collectables and antiques boutiques, and in publications like The Bark (“the New Yorker of Dog Magazines”) and Clean Run, the international agility magazine, Website, online book store and information gateway for agility products and services. Available online resources for dog lovers have similarly increased rapidly during the decade since Garber’s book was published, with the virtual world now catering for serious hobby trainers, exhibitors and professionals as well as the home-based pet lover. At a recent survey, Yahoo Groups – a personal communication portal that facilitates social networking, in this case enabling users to set up electronic mailing lists and Internet forums – boasted just over 9,600 groups servicing dog fanciers and enthusiasts. The list Dogtalk is now an announcement only mailing list, but was a vigorous discussion forum until mid-2006. Members of Dogtalk were Australian-based “clicker-trainers”, serious hobbyist dog trainers, many of whom operated micro-businesses providing dog training or other pet-related services. They shared an online community, but could also engage in “flesh-meets” at seminars, conferences and competitive dog sport meets. An author of this paper (Rutherford) joined this group two years ago because of her interest in clicker training. Clicker training is based on an application of animal learning theory, particularly psychologist E. F. Skinner’s operant conditioning, so called because of the trademark use of a distinctive “click” sound to mark a desired behaviour that is then rewarded. Clicker trainers tend to dismiss anthropomorphic pack theory that positions the human animal as fundamentally opposed to non-human animals and, thus, foster a partnership (rather than a dominator) mode of social and learning relationships. Partnership and nurturance are common themes within the clicker community (as well as in more traditional “home” locations); as is recognising and valuing the specific otherness of other species. Typically, members regard their pets as affective equals or near-equals to the human animals that are recognised members of their kinship networks. A significant function of the episodic biographical narratives and responses posted to this list was thus to affirm and legitimate this intra-specific kinship as part of normative social relationship – a perspective that is not usually validated in the general population. One of the more interesting nexus that evolved within Dogtalk links the narrativisation of the pet in the domestic sphere with the pictorial genre of the family album. Emergent technologies, such as digital cameras together with Web-based image manipulation software and hosting (as provided by portals like Photobucket and Flickr ) democratise high quality image creation and facilitate the sharing of these images. Increasingly, the Dogtalk list linked to images uploaded to free online galleries, discussed digital image composition and aesthetics, and shared technical information about cameras and online image distribution. Much of this cultural production and circulation was concerned with digitally inscribing particular relationships with individual animals into cultural memory: a form of family group biography (for a discussion of the family photograph as a display of extended domestic space, see Rose). The other major non-training thread of the community involves the sharing and witnessing of the trauma suffered due to the illness and loss of pets. While mourning for human family members is supported in the off-line world – with social infrastructure, such as compassionate leave and/or bereavement counselling, part of professional entitlements – public mourning for pets is not similarly supported. Yet, both cultural studies (in its emphasis on cultural memory) and trauma theory have highlighted the importance of social witnessing, whereby traumatic memories must be narratively integrated into memory and legitimised by the presence of a witness in order to loosen their debilitating hold (Felman and Laub 57). Postings on the progress of a beloved animal’s illness or other misfortune and death were thus witnessed and affirmed by other Dogtalk list members – the sick or deceased pet becoming, in the process, a feature of community memory, not simply an individual loss. In terms of such biographical narratives, memory and history are not identical: “Any memories capable of being formed, retained or articulated by an individual are always a function of socially constituted forms, narratives and relations … Memory is always subject to active social manipulation and revision” (Halbwachs qtd. in Crewe 75). In this way, emergent technologies and social software provide sites, akin to that of physical homes, for family members to process individual memories into cultural memory. Dogzonline, the Australian Gateway site for purebred dog enthusiasts, has a forum entitled “Rainbow Bridge” devoted to textual and pictorial memorialisation of deceased pet dogs. Dogster hosts the For the Love of Dogs Weblog, in which images and tributes can be posted, and also provides links to other dog oriented Weblogs and Websites. An interesting combination of both therapeutic narrative and the commodification of affect is found in Lightning Strike Pet Loss Support which, while a memorial and support site, also provides links to the emerging profession of pet bereavement counselling and to suppliers of monuments and tributary urns for home or other use. loobylu and Narratives of Everyday Life The second case study focuses on online interactions between craft enthusiasts who are committed to the production of distinctive objects to decorate and provide comfort in the home, often using traditional methods. In the case of some popular craft Weblogs, online conversations about craft are interspersed with, or become secondary to, the narration of details of family life, the exploration of important life events or the recording of personal histories. As in the previous examples, the offering of advice and encouragement, and expressions of empathy and support, often characterise these interactions. The loobylu Weblog was launched in 2001 by illustrator and domestic crafts enthusiast Claire Robertson. Robertson is a toy maker and illustrator based in Melbourne, Australia, whose clients have included prominent publishing houses, magazines and the New York Public Library (Robertson “Recent Client List” online). She has achieved a measure of public recognition: her loobylu Weblog has won awards and been favourably commented upon in the Australian press (see Robertson “Press for loobylu” online). In 2005, an article in The Age placed Robertson in the context of a contemporary “craft revolution”, reporting her view that this “revolution” is in “reaction to mass consumerism” (Atkinson online). The hand-made craft objects featured in Robertson’s Weblogs certainly do suggest engagement with labour-intensive pursuits and the construction of unique objects that reject processes of mass production and consumption. In this context, loobylu is a vehicle for the display and promotion of Robertson’s work as an illustrator and as a craft practitioner. While skills-based, it also, however, promotes a family-centred lifestyle; it advocates the construction by hand of objects designed to enhance the appearance of the family home and the comfort of its inhabitants. Its specific subject matter extends to related aspects of home and family as, in addition to instructions, ideas and patterns for craft, the Weblog features information on commercially available products for home and family, recipes, child rearing advice and links to 27 other craft and other sites (including Nigella Lawson’s, discussed below). The primary member of its target community is clearly the traditional homemaker – the mother – as well as those who may aspire to this role. Robertson does not have the “celebrity” status of Lawson and Jamie Oliver (discussed below), nor has she achieved their market saturation. Indeed, Robertson’s online presence suggests a modest level of engagement that is placed firmly behind other commitments: in February 2007, she announced an indefinite suspension of her blog postings so that she could spend more time with her family (Robertson loobylu 17 February 2007). Yet, like Lawson and Oliver, Robertson has exploited forms of domestic competence traditionally associated with women and the home, and the non-traditional medium of the Internet has been central to her endeavours. The content of the loobylu blog is, unsurprisingly, embedded in, or an accessory to, a unifying running commentary on Robertson’s domestic life as a parent. Miles, who has described Weblogs as “distributed documentaries of the everyday” (66) sums this up neatly: “the weblogs’ governing discursive quality is the manner in which it is embodied within the life world of its author” (67). Landmark family events are narrated on loobylu and some attract deluges of responses: the 19 June 2006 posting announcing the birth of Robertson’s daughter Lily, for example, drew 478 responses; five days later, one describing the difficult circumstances of her birth drew 232 comments. All of these comments are pithy, with many being simple empathetic expressions or brief autobiographically based commentaries on these events. Robertson’s news of her temporary retirement from her blog elicited 176 comments that both supported her decision and also expressed a sense of loss. Frequent exclamation marks attest visually to the emotional intensity of the responses. By narrating aspects of major life events to which the target audience can relate, the postings represent a form of affective mass production and consumption: they are triggers for a collective outpouring of largely homogeneous emotional reaction (joy, in the case of Lily’s birth). As collections of texts, they can be read as auto/biographic records, arranged thematically, that operate at both the individual and the community levels. Readers of the family narratives and the affirming responses to them engage in a form of mass affirmation and consumerism of domestic experience that is easy, immediate, attractive and free of charge. These personal discourses blend fluidly with those of a commercial nature. Some three weeks after loobylu announced the birth of her daughter, Robertson shared on her Weblog news of her mastitis, Lily’s first smile and the family’s favourite television programs at the time, information that many of us would consider to be quite private details of family life. Three days later, she posted a photograph of a sleeping baby with a caption that skilfully (and negatively) links it to her daughter: “Firstly – I should mention that this is not a photo of Lily”. The accompanying text points out that it is a photo of a baby with the “Zaky Infant Sleeping Pillow” and provides a link to the online pregnancystore.com, from which it can be purchased. A quotation from the manufacturer describing the merits of the pillow follows. Robertson then makes a light-hearted comment on her experiences of baby-induced sleep-deprivation, and the possible consequences of possessing the pillow. Comments from readers also similarly alternate between the personal (sharing of experiences) to the commercial (comments on the product itself). One offshoot of loobylu suggests that the original community grew to an extent that it could support specialised groups within its boundaries. A Month of Softies began in November 2004, describing itself as “a group craft project which takes place every month” and an activity that “might give you a sense of community and kinship with other similar minded crafty types across the Internet and around the world” (Robertson A Month of Softies online). Robertson gave each month a particular theme, and readers were invited to upload a photograph of a craft object they had made that fitted the theme, with a caption. These were then included in the site’s gallery, in the order in which they were received. Added to the majority of captions was also a link to the site (often a business) of the creator of the object; another linking of the personal and the commercial in the home-based “cottage industry” sense. From July 2005, A Month of Softies operated through a Flickr site. Participants continued to submit photos of their craft objects (with captions), but also had access to a group photograph pool and public discussion board. This extension simulates (albeit in an entirely visual way) the often home-based physical meetings of craft enthusiasts that in contemporary Australia take the form of knitting, quilting, weaving or other groups. Chatting with, and about, Celebrity Chefs The previous studies have shown how the Internet has broken down many barriers between what could be understood as the separate spheres of emotional (that is, home-based private) and commercial (public) life. The online environment similarly enables the formation and development of fan communities by facilitating communication between those fans and, sometimes, between fans and the objects of their admiration. The term “fan” is used here in the broadest sense, referring to “a person with enduring involvement with some subject or object, often a celebrity, a sport, TV show, etc.” (Thorne and Bruner 52) rather than focusing on the more obsessive and, indeed, more “fanatical” aspects of such involvement, behaviour which is, increasingly understood as a subculture of more variously constituted fandoms (Jenson 9-29). Our specific interest in fandom in relation to this discussion is how, while marketers and consumer behaviourists study online fan communities for clues on how to more successfully market consumer goods and services to these groups (see, for example, Kozinets, “I Want to Believe” 470-5; “Utopian Enterprise” 67-88; Algesheimer et al. 19-34), fans regularly subvert the efforts of those urging consumer consumption to utilise even the most profit-driven Websites for non-commercial home-based and personal activities. While it is obvious that celebrities use the media to promote themselves, a number of contemporary celebrity chefs employ the media to construct and market widely recognisable personas based on their own, often domestically based, life stories. As examples, Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson’s printed books and mass periodical articles, television series and other performances across a range of media continuously draw on, elaborate upon, and ultimately construct their own lives as the major theme of these works. In this, these – as many other – celebrity chefs draw upon this revelation of their private lives to lend authenticity to their cooking, to the point where their work (whether cookbook, television show, advertisement or live chat room session with their fans) could be described as “memoir-illustrated-with-recipes” (Brien and Williamson). This generic tendency influences these celebrities’ communities, to the point where a number of Websites devoted to marketing celebrity chefs as product brands also enable their fans to share their own life stories with large readerships. Oliver and Lawson’s official Websites confirm the privileging of autobiographical and biographical information, but vary in tone and approach. Each is, for instance, deliberately gendered (see Hollows’ articles for a rich exploration of gender, Oliver and Lawson). Oliver’s hip, boyish, friendly, almost frantic site includes the what are purported-to-be self-revelatory “Diary” and “About me” sections, a selection of captioned photographs of the chef, his family, friends, co-workers and sponsors, and his Weblog as well as footage streamed “live from Jamie’s phone”. This self-revelation – which includes significant details about Oliver’s childhood and his domestic life with his “lovely girls, Jools [wife Juliette Norton], Poppy and Daisy” – completely blurs the line between private life and the “Jamie Oliver” brand. While such revelation has been normalised in contemporary culture, this practice stands in great contrast to that of renowned chefs and food writers such as Elizabeth David, Julia Child, James Beard and Margaret Fulton, whose work across various media has largely concentrated on food, cooking and writing about cooking. The difference here is because Oliver’s (supposedly private) life is the brand, used to sell “Jamie Oliver restaurant owner and chef”, “Jamie Oliver cookbook author and TV star”, “Jamie Oliver advertising spokesperson for Sainsbury’s supermarket” (from which he earns an estimated £1.2 million annually) (Meller online) and “Jamie Oliver social activist” (made MBE in 2003 after his first Fifteen restaurant initiative, Oliver was named “Most inspiring political figure” in the 2006 Channel 4 Political Awards for his intervention into the provision of nutritious British school lunches) (see biographies by Hildred and Ewbank, and Smith). Lawson’s site has a more refined, feminine appearance and layout and is more mature in presentation and tone, featuring updates on her (private and public) “News” and forthcoming public appearances, a glamorous selection of photographs of herself from the past 20 years, and a series of print and audio interviews. Although Lawson’s children have featured in some of her television programs and her personal misfortunes are well known and regularly commented upon by both herself and journalists (her mother, sister and husband died of cancer) discussions of these tragedies, and other widely known aspects of her private life such as her second marriage to advertising mogul Charles Saatchi, is not as overt as on Oliver’s site, and the user must delve to find it. The use of Lawson’s personal memoir, as sales tool, is thus both present and controlled. This is in keeping with Lawson’s professional experience prior to becoming the “domestic goddess” (Lawson 2000) as an Oxford graduated journalist on the Spectator and deputy literary editor of the Sunday Times. Both Lawson’s and Oliver’s Websites offer readers various ways to interact with them “personally”. Visitors to Oliver’s site can ask him questions and can access a frequently asked question area, while Lawson holds (once monthly, now irregularly) a question and answer forum. In contrast to this information about, and access to, Oliver and Lawson’s lives, neither of their Websites includes many recipes or other food and cooking focussed information – although there is detailed information profiling their significant number of bestselling cookbooks (Oliver has published 8 cookbooks since 1998, Lawson 5 since 1999), DVDs and videos of their television series and one-off programs, and their name branded product lines of domestic kitchenware (Oliver and Lawson) and foodstuffs (Oliver). Instruction on how to purchase these items is also featured. Both these sites, like Robertson’s, provide various online discussion fora, allowing members to comment upon these chefs’ lives and work, and also to connect with each other through posted texts and images. Oliver’s discussion forum section notes “this is the place for you all to chat to each other, exchange recipe ideas and maybe even help each other out with any problems you might have in the kitchen area”. Lawson’s front page listing states: “You will also find a moderated discussion forum, called Your Page, where our registered members can swap ideas and interact with each other”. The community participants around these celebrity chefs can be, as is the case with loobylu, divided into two groups. The first is “foodie (in Robertson’s case, craft) fans” who appear to largely engage with these Websites to gain, and to share, food, cooking and craft-related information. Such fans on Oliver and Lawson’s discussion lists most frequently discuss these chefs’ television programs and books and the recipes presented therein. They test recipes at home and discuss the results achieved, any problems encountered and possible changes. They also post queries and share information about other recipes, ingredients, utensils, techniques, menus and a wide range of food and cookery-related matters. The second group consists of “celebrity fans” who are attracted to the chefs (as to Robertson as craft maker) as personalities. These fans seek and share biographical information about Oliver and Lawson, their activities and their families. These two areas of fan interest (food/cooking/craft and the personal) are not necessarily or always separated, and individuals can be active members of both types of fandoms. Less foodie-orientated users, however (like users of Dogtalk and loobylu), also frequently post their own auto/biographical narratives to these lists. These narratives, albeit often fragmented, may begin with recipes and cooking queries or issues, but veer off into personal stories that possess only minimal or no relationship to culinary matters. These members also return to the boards to discuss their own revealed life stories with others who have commented on these narratives. Although research into this aspect is in its early stages, it appears that the amount of public personal revelation either encouraged, or allowed, is in direct proportion to the “open” friendliness of these sites. More thus are located in Oliver’s and less in Lawson’s, and – as a kind of “control” in this case study, but not otherwise discussed – none in that of Australian chef Neil Perry, whose coolly sophisticated Website perfectly complements Perry’s professional persona as the epitome of the refined, sophisticated and, importantly in this case, unapproachable, high-end restaurant chef. Moreover, non-cuisine related postings are made despite clear directions to the contrary – Lawson’s site stating: “We ask that postings are restricted to topics relating to food, cooking, the kitchen and, of course, Nigella!” and Oliver making the plea, noted above, for participants to keep their discussions “in the kitchen area”. Of course, all such contemporary celebrity chefs are supported by teams of media specialists who selectively construct the lives that these celebrities share with the public and the postings about others’ lives that are allowed to remain on their discussion lists. The intersection of the findings reported above with the earlier case studies suggests, however, that even these most commercially-oriented sites can provide a fruitful data regarding their function as home-like spaces where domestic practices and processes can be refined, and emotional relationships formed and fostered. In Summary As convergence results in what Turow and Kavanaugh call “the wired homestead”, our case studies show that physically home-based domestic interests and practices – what could be called “home truths” – are also contributing to a refiguration of the private/public interplay of domestic activities through online dialogue. In the case of Dogtalk, domestic space is reconstituted through virtual spaces to include new definitions of family and memory. In the case of loobylu, the virtual interaction facilitates a development of craft-based domestic practices within the physical space of the home, thus transforming domestic routines. Jamie Oliver’s and Nigella Lawson’s sites facilitate development of both skills and gendered identities by means of a bi-directional nexus between domestic practices, sites of home labour/identity production and public media spaces. As participants modify and redefine these online communities to best suit their own needs and desires, even if this is contrary to the stated purposes for which the community was instituted, online communities can be seen to be domesticated, but, equally, these modifications demonstrate that the activities and relationships that have traditionally defined the home are not limited to the physical space of the house. While virtual communities are “passage points for collections of common beliefs and practices that united people who were physically separated” (Stone qtd in Jones 19), these interactions can lead to shared beliefs, for example, through advice about pet-keeping, craft and cooking, that can significantly modify practices and routines in the physical home. Acknowledgments An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Association of Internet Researchers’ International Conference, Brisbane, 27-30 September 2006. The authors would like to thank the referees of this article for their comments and input. Any errors are, of course, our own. References Algesheimer, R., U. Dholake, and A. Herrmann. “The Social Influence of Brand Community: Evidence from European Car Clubs”. Journal of Marketing 69 (2005): 19-34. Atkinson, Frances. “A New World of Craft”. The Age (11 July 2005). 28 May 2007 http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2005/07/10/1120934123262.html>. Brien, Donna Lee, and Rosemary Williamson. “‘Angels of the Home’ in Cyberspace: New Technologies and Biographies of Domestic Production”. Paper. Biography and New Technologies conference. Humanities Research Centre, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT. 12-14 Sep. 2006. Crewe, Jonathan. “Recalling Adamastor: Literature as Cultural Memory in ‘White’ South Africa”. In Acts of Memory: Cultural Recall in the Present, eds. Mieke Bal, Jonathan Crewe, and Leo Spitzer. Hanover, NH: Dartmouth College, 1999. 75-86. Felman, Shoshana, and Dori Laub. Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis, and History. New York: Routledge, 1992. Garber, Marjorie. Dog Love. New York: Touchstone/Simon and Schuster, 1996. Gorman-Murray, Andrew. “Homeboys: Uses of Home by Gay Australian Men”. Social and Cultural Geography 7.1 (2006): 53-69. Halbwachs, Maurice. On Collective Memory. Trans. Lewis A. Closer. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1992. Hildred, Stafford, and Tim Ewbank. Jamie Oliver: The Biography. London: Blake, 2001. Hollows, Joanne. “Feeling like a Domestic Goddess: Post-Feminism and Cooking.” European Journal of Cultural Studies 6.2 (2003): 179-202. ———. “Oliver’s Twist: Leisure, Labour and Domestic Masculinity in The Naked Chef.” International Journal of Cultural Studies 6.2 (2003): 229-248. Jenson, J. “Fandom as Pathology: The Consequences of Characterization”. The Adoring Audience; Fan Culture and Popular Media. Ed. L. A. Lewis. New York, NY: Routledge, 1992. 9-29. Jones, Steven G., ed. Cybersociety, Computer-Mediated Communication and Community. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1995. Kozinets, R.V. “‘I Want to Believe’: A Netnography of the X’Philes’ Subculture of Consumption”. Advances in Consumer Research 34 (1997): 470-5. ———. “Utopian Enterprise: Articulating the Meanings of Star Trek’s Culture of Consumption.” Journal of Consumer Research 28 (2001): 67-88. Lawson, Nigella. How to Be a Domestic Goddess: Baking and the Art of Comfort Cooking. London: Chatto and Windus, 2000. Meller, Henry. “Jamie’s Tips Spark Asparagus Shortages”. Daily Mail (17 June 2005). 21 Aug. 2007 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/health/dietfitness.html? in_article_id=352584&in_page_id=1798>. Miles, Adrian. “Weblogs: Distributed Documentaries of the Everyday.” Metro 143: 66-70. Moss, Pamela. “Negotiating Space in Home Environments: Older Women Living with Arthritis.” Social Science and Medicine 45.1 (1997): 23-33. Robertson, Claire. Claire Robertson Illustration. 2000-2004. 28 May 2007 . Robertson, Claire. loobylu. 16 Feb. 2007. 28 May 2007 http://www.loobylu.com>. Robertson, Claire. “Press for loobylu.” Claire Robertson Illustration. 2000-2004. 28 May 2007 http://www.clairetown.com/press.html>. Robertson, Claire. A Month of Softies. 28 May 2007. 21 Aug. 2007 . Robertson, Claire. “Recent Client List”. Claire Robertson Illustration. 2000-2004. 28 May 2007 http://www.clairetown.com/clients.html>. Rose, Gillian. “Family Photographs and Domestic Spacings: A Case Study.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers NS 28.1 (2003): 5-18. Smith, Gilly. Jamie Oliver: Turning Up the Heat. Sydney: Macmillian, 2006. Thorne, Scott, and Gordon C. Bruner. “An Exploratory Investigation of the Characteristics of Consumer Fanaticism.” Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal 9.1 (2006): 51-72. Turow, Joseph, and Andrea Kavanaugh, eds. The Wired Homestead: An MIT Press Sourcebook on the Internet and the Family. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Brien, Donna Lee, Leonie Rutherford, and Rosemary Williamson. "Hearth and Hotmail: The Domestic Sphere as Commodity and Community in Cyberspace." M/C Journal 10.4 (2007). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0708/10-brien.php>. APA Style Brien, D., L. Rutherford, and R. Williamson. (Aug. 2007) "Hearth and Hotmail: The Domestic Sphere as Commodity and Community in Cyberspace," M/C Journal, 10(4). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0708/10-brien.php>.

Connections In Small Pieces Loosely Joined, David Weinberger identifies some of the obvious changes which the Web has brought to human relations. Social connections, he argues, used to be exclusively defined and constrained by the physics and physicality of the “real” world, or by geographical and material facts: it’s … true that we generally have to travel longer to get to places that are farther away; that to be heard at the back of the theater, you have to speak louder; that when a couple moves apart, their relationship changes; that if I give you something, I no longer have it. (xi) The Web, however, is a place (or many places) where the boundaries of space, time, and presence are being reworked. Further, since we built this virtual world ourselves and are constantly involved in its evolution, the Web can tell us much about who we are and how we relate to others. In Weinberger’s view, it demonstrates that “we are creatures who care about ourselves and the world we share with others”, and that “we live within a context of meaning” beyond what we had previously cared to imagine (xi-xii). Before the establishment of computer-mediated communication (CMC), we already had multiple means of connecting people commonly separated by space (Gitelman and Pingree). Yet the Web has allowed us to see each other whilst separated by great distances, to share stories, images and other media online, to co-construct or “produse” (Bruns) content and, importantly, to do so within groups, rather than merely between individuals (Weinberger 108). This optimistic evaluation of the Web and social relations is a response to some of the more cautious public voices that have accompanied recent technological developments. In the 1990s, Jan van Dijk raised concerns about what he anticipated as wide-reaching social consequences in the new “age of networks” (2). The network society, as van Dijk described it, was defined by new interconnections (chiefly via the World Wide Web), increased media convergence and narrowcasting, a spread of both social and media networks and the decline of traditional communities and forms of communication. Modern-day communities now consisted both of “organic” (physical) and “virtual” communities, with mediated communication seemingly beginning to replace, or at least supplement, face-to-face interaction (24). Recently, we have found ourselves on the verge of even more “interconnectedness” as the future seems determined by ubiquitous computing (ubicomp) and a new technological and cultural development known as the “Internet of Things” (Greenfield). Ubicomp refers to the integration of information technology into everyday objects and processes, to such an extent that the end-users are often unaware of the technology. According to Greenfield, ubicomp has significant potential to alter not only our relationship with technology, but the very fabric of our existence: A mobile phone … can be switched off or left at home. A computer … can be shut down, unplugged, walked away from. But the technology we're discussing here–ambient, ubiquitous, capable of insinuating itself into all the apertures everyday life affords it–will form our environment in a way neither of those technologies can. (6) Greenfield's ideas are neither hypothesis, nor hyperbole. Ubicomp is already a reality. Dodson notes, Ubicomp isn't just part of our ... future. Its devices and services are already here. Think of the use of prepaid smart cards for use of public transport or the tags displayed in our cars to help regulate congestion charge pricing or the way in which corporations track and move goods around the world. (7) The Internet of Things advances the ubicomp notion of objects embedded with the capacity to receive and transmit data and anticipates a move towards a society in which every device is “on” and in some way connected to the Internet; in other words, objects become networked. Information contained within and transmitted among networked objects becomes a “digital overlay” (Valhouli 2) over the physical world. Valhouli explains that objects, as well as geographical sites, become part of the Internet of Things in two ways. Information may become associated with a specific location using GPS coordinates or a street address. Alternatively, embedding sensors and transmitters into objects enables them to be addressed by Internet protocols, and to sense and react to their environments, as well as communicate with users or with other objects. (2) The Internet of Things is not a theoretical paradigm. It is a framework for describing contemporary technological processes, in which communication moves beyond the established realm of human interaction, to enable a whole range of potential communications: “person-to-device (e.g. scheduling, remote control, or status update), device-to-device, or device-to-grid” (Valhouli 2). Are these newer forms of communication in any sense meaningful? Currently, ubicomp's applications are largely functional, used in transport, security, and stock control. Yet, the possibilities afforded by the technology can be employed to enhance “connectedness” and “togetherness” in the broadest social sense. Most forms of technology have at least some social impact; this is particularly true of communication technology. How can that impact be made explicit? Here, we discuss one such potential application of ubicomp with reference to a new UK research project: TOTeM–Tales of Things and Electronic Memory. TOTeM aims to draw on personal narratives, digital media, and tagging to create an “Internet” of people, things, and object memories via Web 2.0 and mobile technologies. Communicating through Objects The TOTeM project, began in August 2009 and funded by Research Councils UK's Digital Economy Programme, is concerned with eliciting the memory and value of “old” artefacts, which are generally excluded from the discourse of the Internet of Things, which focuses on new and future objects produced with embedded sensors and transmitters. We focus instead on existing artefacts that hold significant personal resonance, not because they are particularly expensive or useful, but because they contain or “evoke” (Turkle) memories of people, places, times, events, or ideas. Objects across a mantelpiece can become conduits between events that happened in the past and people who will occupy the future (Miller 30). TOTeM will draw on user-generated content and innovative tagging technology to study the personal relationships between people and objects, and between people through objects. Our hypothesis is that the stories that are connected to particular objects can become binding ties between individuals, as they provide insights into personal histories and values that are usually not shared, not because they are somehow too personal or uninteresting, but because there is currently little systematic context for sharing them. Even in families, where objects routinely pass down through generations, the stories associated with these objects are generally either reduced to a vague anecdote or lost entirely. Beyond families, there are some objects whose stories are deemed culturally-significant: monuments, the possessions of historical figures, religious artefacts, and archaeological finds. The current value system which defines an object’s cultural significance appears to replicate Bourdieu's assessment of the hierarchies which define aesthetic concepts such as taste. In both cases, the popular, everyday, or otherwise mundane is deemed to possess less cultural capital than that which is less accessible or otherwise associated with the social elites. As a result, objects whose histories are well-known are mostly found in museums, untouchable and unused, whereas objects which are within reach, all around us, tend to travel from owner to owner without anyone considering what histories they might contain. TOTeM’s aim is to provide both a context and a mechanism for enabling individuals and community groups to share object-related stories and memories through digital media, via a custom-built platform of “tales of things”. Participants will be able to use real-life objects as conduits for memory, by producing “tales” about the object's personal significance, told through digital video, photographs, audio, or a mixture of media. These tales will be hosted on the TOTeM project's website. Through specifically-developed TOTeM technology, each object tale will generate a unique physical tag, initially in the form of RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) and QR (Quick Response) codes. TOTeM participants will be able to attach these tags/codes to their objects. When scanned with a mobile phone equipped with free TOTeM software or an RFID tag reader, each tag will access the individual object's tale online, playing the media files telling that object’s story on the mobile phone or computer. The object's user-created tale will be persistently accessible via both the Internet and 3G (third generation) mobile phones. The market share of 3G and 4G mobile networks is expanding, with some analysts predicting that they will account for 30% of the global mobile phone market by 2014 (Kawamoto). As the market for mobile phones with fast data transfer rates keeps growing, TOTeM will become accessible to an ever-growing number of mobile, as well as Internet, users. The TOTeM platform will serve two primary functions. It will become an archive for object memories and thus grow to become an “archaeology for the future”. We hope that future generations will be able to return to this repository and learn about the things that are meaningful to groups and individuals right now. The platform will also serve as an arena for contemporary communication. As the project develops, object memories will be directly accessible through tagged artefacts, as well as through browsing and keyword searches on the project website. Participants will be able to communicate via the TOTeM platform. On a practical level, the platform can bring together people who already share an interest in certain objects, times, or places (e.g. collectors, amateur historians, genealogists, as well as academics). In addition, we hope that the novelty of TOTeM’s approach to objects may encourage some of those individuals for whom non-participation in the digital world is not a question of access but one of apathy and perceived irrelevance (Ofcom 3). Tales of Things: Pilots Since the beginning of this research project, we have begun to construct the TOTeM platform and develop the associated tagging technology. While the TOTeM platform is being built, we have also used this time to conduct a pilot “tale-telling” phase, with the aim of exploring how people might choose to communicate object stories and how this might make them feel. In this initial phase, we focus on eliciting and constructing object tales, without the use of the TOTeM platform or the tagging technology, which will be tested in a future trial. Following Thomson and Holland’s autoethnographic approach, in the first instance, the TOTeM team and advisors shared their own tales with each other (some of these can be viewed on the TOTeM Website). Each of us chose an object that was personally significant to us, digitally recorded our object memories, and uploaded videos to a YouTube channel for discussion amongst the group. Team members in Edinburgh subsequently involved a group of undergraduate students in the pilot. Here, we offer some initial reflections on what we have learned from recording and sharing these early TOTeM tales. The objects the TOTeM team and advisors chose independently from each other included a birth tag, a box of slides, a tile, a block of surf wax, a sweet jar from Japan, a mobile phone, a concert ticket, a wrist band, a cricket bat, a watch, an iPhone, a piece of the Berlin Wall, an antique pocket sundial, and a daughter’s childhood toy. The sheer variety of the objects we selected as being personally significant was intriguing, as were the varying reasons for choosing the objects. Even there was some overlap in object choice, for instance between the mobile and the iPhone, the two items (one (relatively) old, one new) told conspicuously different stories. The mobile held the memory of a lost friend via an old text message; the iPhone was valued not only for its practical uses, but because it symbolised the incarnation of two childhood sci-fi fantasies: a James Bond-inspired tracking device (GPS) and the “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy”. While the memories and stories linked to these objects were in many ways idiosyncratic, some patterns have emerged even at this early stage. Stories broadly differed in terms of whether they related to an individual’s personal experience (e.g. memorable moments or times in one’s life) or to their connection with other people. They could also relate to the memory of particular events, from football matches, concerts and festivals on a relatively local basis, to globally significant milestones, such as the fall of the Berlin Wall. In many cases, objects had been kept as tokens and reminders of particularly “colourful” and happy times. One student presented a wooden stick which he had picked up from a beach on his first parent-free “lads’ holiday”. Engraved on the stick were the names of the friends who had accompanied him on this memorable trip. Objects could also mark the beginning or end of a personal life stretch: for one student, his Dub Child vinyl record symbolised the moment he discovered and began to understand experimental music; it also constituted a reminder of the influence his brother had had on his musical taste. At other times, objects were significant because they served as mementos for people who had been “lost” in one way or another, either because they had moved to different places, or because they had gone missing or passed away. With some, there was a sense that the very nature of the object enabled the act of holding on to a memory in a particular way. The aforementioned mobile phone, though usually out of use, was actively recharged for the purposes of remembering. Similarly, an unused wind-up watch was kept going to simultaneously keep alive the memory of its former owner. It is commonly understood that the sharing of insights into one’s personal life provides one way of building and maintaining social relationships (Greene et al.). Self-disclosure, as it is known in psychological terms, carries some negative connotations, such as making oneself vulnerable to the judgement of others or giving away “too much too soon”. Often its achievement is dependent on timing and context. We were surprised by the extent to which some of us chose to disclose quite sensitive information with full knowledge of eventually making these stories public online. At the same time, as both researchers and, in a sense, as an audience, we found it a humbling experience to be allowed into people’s and objects’ meaningful pasts and presents. It is obvious that the invitation to talk about meaningful objects also results in stories about things and people we deeply care about. We have yet to see what shape the TOTeM platform will take as more people share their stories and learn about those of others. We don’t know whether it will be taken up as a fully-fledged communication platform or merely as an archive for object memories, whether people will continue to share what seem like deep insights into personal life stories, or if they choose to make more subversive (no less meaningful) contributions. Likewise, it is yet to be seen how the linking of objects with personal stories through tagging could impact people’s relationships with both the objects and the stories they contain. To us, this initial trial phase, while small in scale, has re-emphasised the potential of sharing object memories in the emerging network of symbolic meaning (Weinberger’s “context of meaning”). Seemingly everyday objects did turn out to contain stories behind them, personal stories which people were willing to share. Returning to Weinberger’s quote with which we began this article, TOTeM will enable the traces of material experiences and relationships to become persistently accessible: giving something away would no longer mean entirely not having it, as the narrative of the object’s significance would persist, and can be added to by future participants. Indeed, TOTeM would enable participants to “give away” more than just the object, while retaining access to the tale which would augment the object. Greenfield ends his discussion of the potential of ubicomp by listing multiple experiences which he does not believe would benefit from any technological augmentation: Going for a long run in the warm gentle rain, gratefully and carefully easing my body into the swelter of a hot springs, listening to the first snowfall of winter, savouring the texture of my wife’s lips … these are all things that require little or no added value by virtue of being networked, relational, correlated to my other activities. They’re already perfect, just as they stand. (258) It is a resonant set of images, and most people would be able to produce a similar list of meaningful personal experiences. Yet, as we have already suggested, technology and meaning need not be mutually exclusive. Indeed, as the discussion of TOTeM begins to illustrate, the use of new technologies in new contexts can augment the commercial applications of ubiquoutous computing with meaningful human communication. At the time of writing, the TOTeM platform is in the later stages of development. We envisage the website taking shape and its content becoming more and more meaningful over time. However, some initial object memories should be available from April 2010, and the TOTeM platform and mobile tagging applications will be fully operational in the summer of 2010. Our progress can be followed on www.youtotem.com and http://twitter.com/talesofthings. TOTeM looks forward to receiving “tales of things” from across the world. References Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. London: Routledge, 1984.Bruns, Axel. “The Future is User-Led: The Path towards Widespread Produsage.” fibreculture 11 (2008). 20 Mar. 2010 ‹http://www.journal.fibreculture.org/issue11/issue11_bruns_print.html›. Dodson, Sean. “Forward: A Tale of Two Cities.” Rob van Kranenburg. The Internet of Things: A Critique of Ambient Technology and the All-Seeing Network of RFID. Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures, Network Notebooks 02, 2008. 5-9. 20 Mar. 2010 ‹http://www.networkcultures.org/_uploads/notebook2_theinternetofthings.pdf›. Gitelman, Lisa, and Geoffrey B. Pingree. Eds. New Media: 1740-1915. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003. Greene, Kathryn, Valerian Derlega, and Alicia Mathews. “Self-Disclosure in Personal Relationships.” Ed. Anita L. Vangelisti and Daniel Perlman. Cambridge Handbook of Personal Relationships. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2006. 409-28. Greenfield, Adam. Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computing. Berkeley, CA: New Riders, 2006. Kawamoto, Dawn. “Report: 3G and 4G Market Share on the Rise.” CNET News 2009. 20 Mar. 2010 ‹http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-10199185-94.html›. Kwint, Marius, Christopher Breward, and Jeremy Aynsley. Material Memories: Design and Evocation. Oxford: Berg, 1999. Miller, Daniel. The Comfort of Things. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2008. Ofcom. ”Accessing the Internet at Home”. 2009. 20 Mar. 2010 ‹http://www.ofcom.org.uk/research/telecoms/reports/bbresearch/bbathome.pdf›. Thomson, Rachel, and Janet Holland. “‘Thanks for the Memory’: Memory Books as a Methodological Resource in Biographical Research.” Qualitative Research 5.2 (2005): 201-19. Turkle, Sherry. Evocative Objects: Things We Think With. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007. Valhouli, Constantine A. The Internet of Things: Networked Objects and Smart Devices. The Hammersmith Group Research Report, 2010. 20 Mar. 2010 ‹http://thehammersmithgroup.com/images/reports/networked_objects.pdf›. Van Dijk, Jan. The Network Society: Social Aspects of New Media. London: SAGE, 1999. Weinberger, David. Small Pieces Loosely Joined: How the Web Shows Us Who We Really Are. Oxford: Perseus Press, 2002.