Paper short abstract:

This paper explores emerging forms of technology-mediated play in Norway, arguing that online avatars provide children with opportunities to engage in time-work as they craft and act out a wide variety of imagined future selves.

Paper long abstract:

Children in Norway increasingly inhabit online worlds, where they craft avatars and hang out and play games with friends. In this paper I draw on ethnographic fieldwork among 8- and 9-year-olds to explore emerging forms of technology-mediated play in Norwegian children's lives. I show how a group of children, by creating and sharing animated films in the online world MovieStarPlanet, acted out a wide range of imagined future selves. I argue that the crafting of avatars and films can be understood as forms of time-work, understood as performances involving a simultaneous acceleration and deceleration of time. The playful projection of—and experimentation with—the future is indicative of how avatars can be considered posthuman subjects, potentially providing key insights into the multiple temporalities at play in children's lives.