What does play look like today?
The technology age we live in today has created a play experience like no other, for our children. On screen time has taken the place of off-screen time
- Never before have children been able to find endless variety, constant sensory feedback and engagement in their play, like they now receive via their digital playground.
- Screens create excitement, the same kind of excitement that children feel with a new play activity. However this excitement never goes away, the batteries never run out and the shiny lustre doesn’t fade.
- Imagine living in this world as a child – constantly feeling excited, constantly stimulated and constantly receiving a reward for behaviour, at the touch of a button. Now imagine all this while using an immature brain that is still developing and trying to make sense of it all.
- Science is still studying these enhanced play effects on a child’s vulnerable brain. Results however, already show that screen time can be damaging to young brains if done for long periods and that lengthy screen time has the potential to set up a child for a lifetime of addictive behaviours, where there is a family history of drug or alcohol addiction.
Embracing the differences.
So if extended screen time is proven to be not that good for your minds, what can parents do about it? Far from being bad and needing to be eliminated altogether from a child’s play, we need to simply consider it’s role in their lives.
- As desirable as it may seem to get rid of screen time altogether, that would create a false reality. Screens are incorporated in almost every aspect of life.
Think about how we scan a grocery product at the grocery store. Think about your child’s school and your child’s digital interaction with their teachers. Think about mobile phones. Think about online banking. Think about online shopping. - There is no place to hide from screens and their influence on our lives may become even more prevalent in years to come.
Children can really benefit from screen time. They bring a level of excitement that toy manufactures can tap into in the off-screen world. Think about all the branded toys derived from television series that children enjoy playing with, in the off-screen world. Would these have the same buy-in without the on screen storylines?
Think of all the imaginative games children have come up with over the years from watching television, like pretending to be superman or batman. How many light-sabre wars have you watched after they have watched Star Wars!
Today we see computers overtaking television in terms of viewing time and so we see our children playing imaginative/creative off screen games in the theme of Minecraft and Roblox.
Use on screen to promote healthier off screen time.
Limited screen time can be useful in promoting healthy forms of off-screen play, such as make-believe and creative play.
- Remember that screens on their own are not necessarily proven to be unhealthy. It’s when screens become the main focus of a child’s play and when children start to miss out on vital exercise that scientists start to see undesirable long term effects on children.
So, for parents, when it comes to screens, it seems to be about creating a healthy balance between off and on-screen play.
Creating healthy technology down-time within the home.
- Playwise recognises that parents don’t necessarily have the time to investigate healthy offline alternatives, nor do they always have the time to be able to sit down with their children to engage with them in such activities/play – hectic life just gets in the way. Discover our simple subscription plans.
- Playwise recognises that children can have difficulty withdrawing from screens and resist the cessation of screen time, making their engagement in off-screen play difficult to achieve.
Partnering with Playwise:
Playwise therefore partners with parents, by offering kid’s toy and activity subscription boxes that create opportunities for healthy technology down-time within the home.
At Playwise, we do all the legwork for parents. We find toys and activities that we believe kids will find most captivating as well as developmentally stimulating and which they will look forward to engaging in, even after screen time. Discover what’s in the toybox.
We also only choose toys and activities that can be done independently, on their own, without the need for a parent. All toys and activities are also tested by a community of kids to ensure the fun factor!
Playwise offers parents the ultimate convenience in creating opportunities for healthy down-time within the home.
1 Sigman, A (2017): Screen Dependency Disorders: a new challenge for child neurology, Journal of the International Child Neurology Association, (17:119), 1-13.
2 Sigman, A (2017): Screen Dependency Disorders: a new challenge for child neurology, Journal of the International Child Neurology Association, (17:119), 1-13.
3 Sydney Children’s Practice (2020): Is your child having screen time withdrawal, [https://sydneychildrenspractice.com.au/2020/06/is-your-child-having-screen-time-withdrawal], (Accessed 04 August 2021)
