From hopscotch to Pokemon Go, it's all play!

“You better go play right now! If I see you not playing, oh, you are gonna be in big trouble. Go play!” An abundance of play-related articles seems to be trying to convince me that kids today need to be forced to play. Can that possibly be true? Play seems to be hard-wired into kids. I don’t think it’s kids that need convincing to play; I think it’s ADULTS that need convincing that play is vital for kids. Decades of research about education and learning, and goals to leave no child behind, has lead some adults to evaluate play using an academic model that puts play outside the realm of high test scores and college success. This positioning has lead to adults determining, little-by-little, that hours or minutes previously available for play could be put to better use with extra-curricular classes, organized sports, and a greater focus in school on the traditional 3 R’s: reading, ‘riting, ‘rithmetic.

Let’s resist the urge to frame adults as some villainous group who don’t want their kids to play (after all, I’m a member of this group!); adults just want their kids to be more successful (whatever that means), and since there’s only 24 hours in a day, something has to go…or at least get cut back. Recess has been cut back or eliminated. Time in school for artistic pursuits has been cut back or eliminated. Time after school for play has been cut back or eliminated. None of these actions is positioned as a decision against ‘play’, it's usually positioned as a necessary reality to create equal opportunity, manage slashed budgets, and deal with dangerous neighborhoods (real or perceived).

Now, however, we’re discovering that play wasn’t simply “down time” or a way to fill empty hours; play was/is a necessary part of a child’s developmental growth. The pendulum is swinging the other way and adults are now seeking ways to bring unstructured play back into children’s lives, while researchers bring rigorous data to this “play is valuable” philosophy.

An interesting addition to this research is a study discussed in the article “Digital play: a new classification” (2016) published in the latest edition of the international research journal, Early Years. The study isn’t taking a position of technology as villain or outdoor play as panacea, but rather considering whether children’s play with technology can provide some of the same benefits as any other kind of play. The study is analyzing how digital technology, specifically apps, promotes play and creativity, with a focus was on preschool-aged children.

To conduct their evaluation the researchers reviewed several categorization models of play and ultimately settled on a taxonomy model from a leader in the field of play (no pun intended), Bob Hughes. Hughes wrote his seminal work on play types in 2001, a time when online play was relatively new and therefore only minimally considered or explored in his initial research. The researchers dealt with this omission by adapting his taxonomy to include digital play.

Today we know that children's play moves across physical and virtual domains and integrates material and immaterial practices. For one example, consider the phenomenal interest in Pokemon Go this past week. This is an app/game that moves across physical and virtual domains and integrates AR (augmented reality) and VR (virtual reality). Users can search for Pokemon characters in their physical world, meet up with other players also searching for physical world Pokemon characters, and then fight a battle online (in the app) to gain points. Users also gain points by doing physical activity (in the real world) and completing that physical entry with a virtual Pokemon interaction. It’s not nearly as confusing as my explanation! Hugh's taxonomy of play delineates 16 types of play, all of which can be seen in physical play and AR and VR:

1. symbolic play

2. rough and tumble play

3. socio-dramatic play

4. social play

5. creative play 6. communicative play

7. dramatic play

8. locomotor play

9. deep play

10. exploratory play

11. fantasy play

12. imaginative

13. mastery

14. object play

15. role play

16. recapitulative play

Even with 16 types of play, the researchers discovered that none of the types spoke directly to children’s desire for transgressive play, play in which children push the boundaries or resist appropriate behavior or use an app in ways not intended by the producers. Add a number 17. Previous research has shown that children (and adults) have an attraction to transgressive play, often dipping a toe in experiences that illicit fear, danger, or the unknown. (Once again, see reference to Pokemon Go.) The researchers note that in digital play children don’t experience these tensions the same way they do in “real” play because in digital play they have more control over the outcome and it’s easy to switch the game off if it’s causing too much emotional stress.

The researchers conclude that “contemporary play draws on both the digital and non-digital properties of things and in doing so moves fluidly across boundaries of space and time in ways that were not possible in the pre-digital era.”

I appreciate that the study resists the temptation to dichotomise digital and non-digital play, or to take the position that children’s play with digital technologies is not ‘real play’. As Susan Edwards argues in her paper on post-industrial play (2013), digital play is not an inferior form of play, but rather a different mode of play and this type of play can also aid a child's creative and imaginative development. Digital play still taps into the core elements of Vygotsky’s Theory of Play from way back in 1978. He stated “In play a child is always above his average age, above his daily behavior; in play it is as though he were a head taller than himself. As in the focus of a magnifying glass, play contains all developmental tendencies in a condensed form; in play it is as though the child were trying to jump above the level of his normal behavior”. Play stretches kids beyond, whether the play is in a backyard, a cement playground, a field, or a digital device.

I can hear the new shouts of parents now, “Come on, grab that smartphone and start playing right now! Or else! Get in front of that screen and play!”

Works cited:

Edwards, S. 2013. “Post-industrial Play: Understanding the Relationship between Traditional and

Converged Forms of Play in the Early Years.” In Children’s Virtual Play Worlds: Culture, Learning and

Participation, edited by A. Burke and J. Marsh, 10–26. New York: Peter Lang.

Hughes, B. (2001) Evolutionary Playwork and Reflective Analytic Practice. Routledge.

Marsh, J. & Plowman, L. & Yamada-Rice, D. & Bishop J. & Scott, F. (2016) Digital play: a new classification. Early Years.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. (M. Cole, V. John-Steiner, S. Scribner, & E. Souberman, Eds.). Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.