The history of communication technologies is littered with visions of negative effects - television, comic books, movies, radio, even novels have all been regarded as potentially unmanageable and ultimately damaging to the social fabric and individual well-being. New digital media are now the focus of concern.

This week, Greg Wadley from School of Computing and Information Systems at the University of Melbourne talks about how the notion of addiction gets misapplied in discussions about the use of social media and computer games.

Then Sue Walker from the School of Early Childhood and Inclusive Education at Queensland University of Technology unpacks some of her  research findings on children’s engagement with electronic gaming.