The Dynamics of Play is Changing

Every month when I come home from college for a visit, I take a look at my three year old nephew and I can't help but feel a sense of sadness at his misfortune. He is not sick or disabled or really in any sort of misfortune that most people would deem as bad. In fact, he is at a level of privilege that many people would aspire towards. 

He has both parents, a mother and a father, both studying to be a nurse part-time, while maintaining full-time jobs. He has access to a strong family system. He is able to go to school during the day, and has a home to come back to at night and a bed to sleep in. He has food and water and plenty of things to keep him occupied. So what exactly is his problem? What is he lacking in? 

While he is lucky to be born in this day and age, with all of its technological advances, I feel as if he is living in an era severely lacking. Even with new innovations and readily accessible information, today's society is missing some of what the society of yesteryear had incorporated so well. That is, play. Or at least the play that I remember. 

When I was three years old, my play consisted of imaginative stories acted out, running around kicking a ball, riding my bike down a hill, or swinging on a swing set in the park. Today, play consists of sitting in front of a screen with a controller in hand, shooting zombies. Play is holding an iPad trying to knock down pigs with a set of colorful, irritated birds. Play is staring at a computer screen, clicking rapidly to escape the creeper on MineCraft.  Play is not what I remember. 

When I was three, I asked my mom and dad how to teach me how to swim, or how to shoot a basket. I asked my brothers to read to me, or play a board game. I begged my sisters to play spy and tag. Today, my nephew asks and begs me to beat the next level of angry birds, or to shoot a zombie for him. It is clear the dynamics of play has changed, and it will continue to until play has no resemblance with its past self. 

Even when I was a child, I remember when video games and computers games were on the rise. We did have a PlayStation and for a few hours a week, my siblings and I would engage in tournaments to see who would reign supreme in Donkey Kong. For a couple hours a night, we would go online and play a few rounds of Snood. 

But that was the extent of our technological play. All of us took part in some type of sport. My brothers in wrestling and baseball, my older sister in volleyball, and the rest of us in tennis and soccer. Even with technology all around us, with Gameboys and Tamogatchis and PlayStations, our play did not consist of being wired. That was merely a small part of it.  

Today, it seems, it plays a much larger portion of play. Rather than going out and running around, kids are increasingly spending more time in front of computers. What does this mean for personal and psychological development? 

Play is essential in development in children. For girls it helps in forming connections, in boys it helps them form a sense of confidence in self. Now what happens when the dynamics of play changes? What happens when play is no longer face to face with other children, but instead facing a computer screen? How will childhood development be affected?

I worry for how this change will affect the new generation. While technology enables our generation to network more readily, I wonder will the new generation even know how to in the first place?