The play deficit: Without the freedom to play, they will never grow up

The decline in opportunity to play has also been accompanied by a decline in empathy and a rise in narcissism, both of which have been assessed since the late 1970s with standard questionnaires given to normative samples of college students. Empathy refers to the ability and tendency to see from another person’s point of view and experience what that person experiences. Narcissism refers to inflated self-regard, coupled with a lack of concern for others and an inability to connect emotionally with others. A decline of empathy and a rise in narcissism are exactly what we would expect to see in children who have little opportunity to play socially. Children can’t learn these social skills and values in school, because school is an authoritarian, not a democratic setting and nor can they learn these from looking at screens whole day. 

Dad, can we get Wifi here?

Nowadays, the buttons have disappeared leaving toys and gadgets with colour touch screens and Wifi. Have you ever been on a train or a bus and sat near a kid aged from one and a half to four years old playing a game on their parent’s phone or iPad? I’ve been in awe of young kids around two years old playing Angry Birds so well like it is no one else’s business. Seriously, the kid knew what he was doing (I would have failed on sooo many levels). 

So, what do kids play with now? Well, not only do their new shiny toys now have batteries, colour and flashy lights (from the screen) but the gadgets are even connected to Wifi. Games as apps and on Steam, TVs and even DVD tuners are connected online via Wifi. Also, you can’t forget the mobile phones either – a screen ever growing and taken with you everywhere lent to the kid to keep them quiet and engaged either through apps or downloaded songs, videos of Dora the Explorer, and the camera capturing their silly faces and voices you name it. Oh, and laptops with more games and multimedia + maybe even schoolwork – no internet data? Are you kidding?! What happens next – we can’t survive without Wifi!! Ok, so maybe that affects the older teens more but you get the picture. It used to be about batteries (issue still exists but we recharge them now) and now maybe it will be more about disappointment with no internet connection.

By the way, Tamagotchi (mentioned in my last post) lives on as a free app on iOS and Andriods and also as a video game on iPod and iPad + how can we forget the Nintendo DS (Side note- I honestly didn't know this until Wikipedia told me =P).