The importance of being playful

Free play makes us better adjusted, smarter and less stressed

A  While it has long been recognized that play affords benefits that last through adulthood, psychologists in the US are now becoming concerned that lack of play could actually be harming their country's kids. In the past, few youngsters grew up without ample free-play time. But youngsters' leisure hours are now filled with structured activities such as music lessons and sports. Kids play soccer, Scrabble and saxophone – so why are experts worried that these activities are eating into free play? Most games are fun and sources of learning experiences – fostering group cohesion, for instance, says educational psychologist Anthony Pellegrini. But, Pellegrini explains, 'games have predetermined rules – set up in advance and followed. Play, on the other hand, does not have rules, so affords more creative responses. Children initiate and create free play, and use their imagination to try out new activities and roles.'

B  Perhaps most crucially, play helps us develop strong social skills. 'You don't become socially competent via teachers telling you how to behave,' Pellegrini says. 'Kids learn those skills by interacting with peers, learning what is and isn't acceptable. They want this thing to keep going, so they're willing to "go the extra mile" to accommodate their playmates' desires.' Keeping things friendly requires communication – arguably the most valuable social skill of all. Play among peers is the most important in this regard. Studies show that children use more sophisticated language when playing with other children than when playing with adults. In pretend play, for instance, 'they have to communicate about something that's not physically present, so they have to use complicated language to communicate what it is that they're trying to say,' Pellegrini explains.

C  If play helps children become socialized, then a lack of play should impede social development – and research suggests that it does. A study of children in Michigan revealed that kids who enrolled in play-oriented preschools are more socially adjusted later in life – and less likely to commit a felony or be suspended from work – than are kids who attended play-free preschools where they were constantly instructed by teachers.

D  A 2003 study even suggests that play promotes emotional and social development in animals. Researchers allowed thirteen control rats to play freely with companions for three and a half days, and kept fourteen others isolated for the same period. Examination revealed that the brains of the rats which had played contained much higher levels of BDNF – a protein that stimulates the growth of new neurons – than those of the animals that had not. 'I think play is the major mechanism whereby higher regions of the brain get socialized,' says neuroscientist Jaak Panksepp, who co-authored the study.

E  Research also suggests that imaginative play is critical for children's emotional health, as it enables them to work through anxiety. In a 1984 study, researchers assessed the anxiety levels of seventy-four children on their first day of preschool. They labeled each child as either 'anxious' or 'not anxious', then randomly split the kids into groups. Half were escorted to rooms full of toys, where they played for 15 minutes; the other half listened to a teacher tell a story for 15 minutes. Afterward, the anxiety levels of the anxious kids who had played had dropped by more than twice as much compared with the anxious kids who had listened to the story.

F  Results of animal studies support these views. In 2008, neuroscientist Stephen Sivy put rats into a chamber and exposed them to a collar previously worn by a cat, making them visibly anxious. Later, the chamber was cleaned to remove the cat odor, and the rats were put back without the collar. They immediately became anxious again, probably because they associated the space with the cat. The researchers then introduced another rat – one that had never been exposed to the collar and was not afraid – and it began playing with one of the rats. 'Shortly thereafter, the first rat relaxed and became calm,' says Sivy, 'suggesting that play helped lessen its anxiety.'

G  Play even appears to make kids smarter. In a classic study, researchers told a group of preschool children to play freely with some common objects such as paper towels, a screwdriver, a wooden board and paper clips. Another group was asked to imitate an experimenter using the objects in common ways. A third set was told to sit and draw whatever they wanted, without seeing the objects. After 10 minutes, the researchers asked the children to come up with ideas for how one of the objects could be used. The kids who had played with the objects named, on average, three times as many nonstandard, creative uses for the objects than those in either of the other two groups did, suggesting that play fosters imaginative thinking.

H  A later animal study produced similar results. Experimenters isolated young rats during the development period when they would have most frequently played. The researchers taught these rats, and a group that had been allowed to play without constraints, to pull a rubber ball out of the way to get a food treat. A few days later they switched the setup so the rats would have to push the same ball to get the treat. Compared with the isolated rats, the ones which had played proved to be far more adept at solving problems. 'Play is like a kaleidoscope,' says evolutionary biologist Marc Bekoff, 'in that it is random and creative. It encourages flexibility and creativity that may, in the future, be advantageous in unexpected situations or new environments. And in the absence of play, children miss vital learning experiences.'

The contradictions of tourism

Tourism may bring benefits to a society but its effects are not always straightforward.

International tourism presents itself as straightforward, passive and benign, yet it is complex, interesting and important, full of contradictions and depths. It has enormous growth potential; almost every country desires an expansion in this sector. Yet whether and how to grow is not nearly as straightforward as one might hope.

Tourism can provide the ideal export for developing countries, which can capitalize on their unique cultures and natural environments. However, to do this they need to have features such as airports, hotels, sanitation facilities, roads and medical facilities. A government can build these itself, using revenue from local taxes or getting finance from foreign lenders. Alternatively, the government may attract foreign investment, allowing others to pay for the building, thus relieving itself of providing capital but forgoing profits.

Tourism is, however, a risky investment. It can gradually decline as a resort becomes seen as outdated, or it can be destroyed overnight by a single hurricane, or a political emergency. Even when successful, countries and localities are faced with a dilemma: keep it within limits, or extend its benefits but also deepen dependence on a single, fickle industry.

By definition, tourists travel to see and knowingly to encounter the different, the original, the authentic. In this increasingly global world, what they want is regional and unique. But only through artifice can the tourist demand for authenticity be met. An event such as a festival or ceremony needs to be brought to their attention and its importance and unique nature elaborated to them. Natural sites, too, need to be presented if they are to be regarded as noteworthy – gates, permits, and notices are required to set them apart from the mundane. Complicated framing and staging allows tourists to recognize, by sight, 'the actual thing'.

Tourism places a premium on the parts of a culture that are visible, such as handicrafts and costume, and disregards those that are not, like the rules governing seating on a bus, attitudes to the elderly, or appropriate ways of addressing family members; in this way, tourism favors what can be commodified. Yet commodities can be produced most efficiently using industrial machinery to take advantage of economies of scale, an option closed to village artisans. This alienates the producers from what is being produced, and means the product no longer has any personal meaning to them.

In addition, cultural idiosyncrasies and natural spectacles change over time. Tourists can't be attracted, however, to an unstable and ambiguous culture, or to a natural site that is in the process of transforming itself. As a consequence, efforts are made to fix and standardize: folk dances, tortilla-making, peace pipes, bird habitats and the course of the Amazon have all been bound and defined. Had they not been fixed, however, they would not be accessible.

Tourism also promotes an external orientation. Like other exports, the 'tourism experience' is produced by local people, and consumed by foreigners. To obtain loans and ultimately create revenue, a government (of whatever size) has to please outside investors and potential travelers. In these ways, tourism can result in a political system becoming more authoritarian and giving less consideration to the needs of individuals within the country.

In recent years, with increased awareness of some of these dangers, the phenomenon of ecotourism has developed. This has been seen as a way to prevent and reverse the environmental degradation resulting from tourism as well as from general human activity. Ecotourists distance themselves from mainstream hotel tourists, and also from adventure tourists like those who have, for example, left rubbish at the base of Mount Everest in Nepal. They want to do things like sleep in tents on platforms in tropical rainforests, swim among the fish on coral reefs, or walk over a tree canopy on a net bridge. They value the ecosystem as it is and are willing to pay for its preservation. In this way, they create an incentive for local people to refrain from using natural resources for short-term gain.

However, what is fortunate for the birds is not always so fortunate for the local people. In order to be environmentally sustainable, ecotourists have to be few in number. The economies of scale that allow tourism to be profitable cannot operate in a small bush camp. Camping doesn't generate much revenue. Ecotourism proves that tourism does not have to be in conflict with environmental preservation. Unfortunately, it also proves that the realm in which the environment and the economy can be mutually supporting is tiny.

Furthermore, Westerners' interest in biodiversity often means that the tourist wants to listen to a parrot, not a local elder, and that dollars bypass beggars on their way to support trees. Thus ecotourists' environmental awareness can stand in contrast to their indifference to the local human community. Tourism always contains a message: this is what we value, this is what we don't.