Written by Sneh Lahurikar
Edited by Ananya Athaiya
Illustrated by Ananya Prabhakar=
“I’m going to play”. These words would be familiar to everyone born before the time smartphones became a staple accessory for children. For children, rules are always something incomprehensible, like a construct created by adults. This mentality reflects best in the way generations of children engaged with each other and the rest of the world- through informal and unorganized play.
If we take a look at the types of games we played as children, we will remember hardly anything codified or rigid about them. Rather, they seem to be built on little to no ‘rules’ as such, only a few basic objectives to be achieved. An excellent example would be tag. There is only one objective: if someone is ‘it’, tag someone else while everyone has to avoid being tagged by ‘it’. Everything else is fair game- running, hiding, climbing, distracting ‘it’ or any other tactics. Many times there are fictitious elements added, like a way to be ‘untaggable’ because of some new rule everyone agreed on, ‘it’ can tag multiple people, a dragon emerged from the horizon so you have to be as silent as possible to avoid being roasted, and so on. The possibilities are endless. The lack of rules is what made play such a fun activity in contradiction to other aspects of childhood like schoolwork or sports: the more rules and rigor involved, the increased likelihood that children will find it less fun and interesting. Children find rules undesirable due their very nature as restrictive elements.
On the surface, this chaotic and anarchy-driven activity may seem very problematic, especially when considering its the primary source of happiness and entertainment that the young strive for, but many studies have concluded that it serves a crucial purpose in the development of children¹.
Unorganized play also comes with unhindered freedom, allowing children to dynamically exercise their body². At the same time, it keeps the prospect of exercising fun and removes the concept of boredom, encouraging them to keep exercising all the way through adulthood. Playing also requires open space, thus pushing children outdoors and granting them all resulting positive outcomes such as access to ample Vitamin D from sunlight. It also improves their tolerance to elements as a result of exposure to such conditions.
Playing also serves as a deeply critical tool in developing the thinking capability of children and expanding their imaginary thresholds. They engage in play with their peers to collectively figure out ways to make the activity as enjoyable as possible (a direct application of problem solving). The absence of adult supervision allows children to freely explore their creativity without fear of being rebuked³. In this way, unorganized play develops both logical and creative thinking at the same time.
Unfortunately, a lot of children today have screens shoved in their faces before they even learn to crawl. While prolonged screen time itself is detrimental to their development, the added effect of not being able to participate in unorganized play (which emerges from the need to see something on a screen as the only way to experience fun and prevents children from associating unorganized play to an enjoyable activity) robs them of its benefits as well. The effects are visible - lack of creativity and originality, inability to think for themselves and little to no physical development- all of which hamper their cognition and health in the long run.
So, it is clear that unorganized play needs to make a resurgence, not just for the benefits it provides, but simply because it is so fun. Most people would be ready to play tag anytime as long as they can relive and recreate their childhood memories; harkening back to a time where having fun didn’t require reasons.
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