I recently attended a webinar where we saw a presentation from Dr Chris Martin who had recently completed his thesis on play and technology. I found it interesting, but did not necessarily agree on all he said. For example, he spoke of an observation within an adventure playground where two girls were filming each other climbing a tree. The girls were later witnessed reviewing the footage, laughing and generally having fun together with their phones and footage – it was suggested that this was just an extension of the tree climbing and that the phones were another play tool. I then read today that a school cluster in Seattle USA had launched a law suit against some of the major social media platforms such as Tik Tok, claiming their children’s education was suffering due to social media pressure which was leading to poor mental health and online addiction. My guess is that they are both not 100% correct. It would be great to hear peoples views on play and technology and in particular phones – are they hindering play, are they being used as an extension for play, or are the affects of being drawn in to engage by algorithms and peer pressure not only leaving less time for play, but causing poor mental health and wellbeing?
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