Current Research Projects


​Tykes and Touchscreens

This study focuses on strategies used by parents to mediate the use of internet-enabled touchscreen tablet devices by pre-schoolers in Singapore  and Vietnam. Research on parents’ mediation of young children's handheld device use has primarily focused on educational purposes or school settings but less so the home. Having concluded the qualitative components of the research comprising in-depth interviews, observations and 'apps-ploration' of devices, the research has now extended to a quantitative stage. I will be undertaking a longitudinal survey of device use in young families in Singapore as part of an $8.5 m grant study funded by the Social Science Research Council.   


​Mobile Media and Transcendent Parenting 

My next book (under contract with Oxford University Press) seeks to capture how the growing prevalence of mobile media and cloud computing has different implications on parenting during each stage of young people’s development. I argue that the advent of pervasive, ubiquitous media has engendered the practice of “transcendent parenting” which goes beyond traditional, physical concepts of parenting, to incorporate virtual and online parenting and how these various aspects intersect. In this emergent form of parenting, parents must transcend every media consumption environment that the child may enter, their children’s offline and online social interaction milieu and ‘timeless time’ as experienced in the apparent ceaselessness of parenting duties.
Photo credit: Kelman Chiang, SG Photobank

​Digital Transformations and Workforce Resilience​

This study will investigate technology disruption in the workplace and the emergent issues. Spanning Humanities, Social Sciences and Engineering, the project brings together an interdisciplinary team of ten researchers to investigate how digital disruption might impact and change Singapore’s economy and society in key industry sectors, in order to provide actionable recommendations for public policy-making and organisations to enhance the resilience of their workers in the face of digital disruption. It is supported by a $2.1 m Social Science Research Council grant. 

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Research Grant Funding

2018-2021
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2017-2020
Social Science Research Council
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Social Science Research Council
$2,100,000
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$8,500,000 ​
Tackling digital disruption: Industry transformations and workforce resilience (Principal Investigator)
Building Human Capacity in Singapore’s Population: Testing Innovations in Human Development (Co-Principal Investigator)
2015-2017
Media Development Authority 
$99,701
Excessive Smartphone Use: Effects of Parenting Style, Impact on Parent-adolescent Relationship and Academic Performance among Singaporean Adolescents (Principal Investigator)
2015-2017
NUS Centre for Family and Population Research 
$9,462.50
Tablet use of pre-schoolers: Family dynamics, parenting practices and mediation strategies (Principal Investigator)
2014-2015
Korean National Research Foundation Joint Research Program
$72,920.65
Vietnamese Marriage Migrants' use of Mediated Communication to Negotiate Stigma and Social Capital: A Cross-Cultural Comparison with Vietnamese Marriage Migrants in Singapore (Co-Principal Investigator)
2010-2013
Ministry of Family Services Family Research Fund
$100,000
​Parental Perceptions and Mediation of Computer Gaming in Singapore (Principal Investigator)
2010-2011
Ministry of Education Academic Research Fund Tier 1
$15,510
Workshop on “The Smartphone in Asia: Its Impact and Development Trajectory in a Hyperconnected Region” (Principal Convenor)
2010-2011
FASS Staff Research Support Scheme 
$8,000
The use of media and technology
by Singaporean juvenile offenders and at-risk youths (Principal Investigator) 
2009 -2010
Asia-Europe Foundation
$25,000
Workshop on “Youths and New Media in Asia and Europe” (Principal Convenor) 
2006-2008
ASEAN Universities Network Korean Association of Southeast Asian Studies
$8,000
Domestication of ICTs by middle-class families in South Korea (Principal Investigator) 
2006-2007
Intellectual Property Academy of Singapore
$100,000
New media piracy and perceptions of intellectual property  (Principal Investigator)
2003-2006
National University of Singapore 
$80,000
Consumers' online privacy perceptions (Co-Principal Investigator) 
2003-2006
National University of Singapore 
$10,000
Domestication of ICTs by middle-class families in China (Principal Investigator)