Dr Jane Mavoa recently completed her PhD on children’s digital play, with a focus on the game Minecraft. Jane’s project looked at the way that adults frame digital play within discourses of ‘screen time’ and education. It also provided detailed descriptions of what 6-8-year-old children actually do when they play Minecraft and how this connects to their broader play worlds. Jane is working on the ‘Mapping Data in the Home’ project, which aims to understand digital data flows within family homes and will contribute to the development of strategies to help Australian families better manage and protect digital data. She aims to contribute to generating knowledge that will have practical value to families navigating the challenges of parenting, and growing up, in a digital world.

Jane hopes that children of our digital future are able to enjoy the same rights online as they do offline. She also hopes that all children’s access to digital spaces is equitable and governed in a way that is safe, respectful of children’s rights and informed by children’s own voices.

Earliest digital memory
Playing Super Mario on a Gameboy lent to me by a student tutored by my mother. While they worked through equations, I worked through the levels of Super Mario Land. Have loved videogames ever since!