Play in Space!

Thoughts from Marianne M. Szymanski; the founder and president of Toy Tips, publisher of Toy Tips and Parenting HintsMagazine and co-author of Toy Tips: A Parent's Essential Guide to Smart Toy Choices (Wiley/Jossey Bass).

Playdates are nothing more than a click away for children who may be bored at home or bored with their friends.

The cyber-playground is becoming an alternative form of traditional play for children as young as age three. While stuffed animals, action figures and dolls all hold a place in a child's imagination, the new sweep and trend of the "virtual world" is stretching a child's play hours into virtual playmates.

Gone are the days of the "couch potato" only to introduce the age of the
"keyboard kids."

According to The New York Times, (December 31, 2007), it is estimated that 8.2 million children are members of virtual worlds, and that number is expected to reach 20 million by 2011.

This is a lot of kids playing online instead of with their friends.

Online play can increase hand-eye coordination. Increasing hand-eye coordination is great if you use your exceled skill for baseball practice but what does that do for personality skills and character development?

While manufacturers are busy creating the next big thing or the next big bust, parents are the ones that hold control of their child's time and how they spend it. Playing online is fun and can be educational and mind-stimulating with various activities, games and even math problems but....... where have the all the heroes gone? Are toys becoming so tech-heavy that children who used to emulate the guts and glory of Evil Knievel, Batman and Superman now shop, collect and visit a virtual world instead of creating their own role play worlds. Will heroes come from cyberspace without any personality or only what the software engineer puts into them? Will children no longer need to actually play with the tangible toy?

Toys that allow children to engage in social communities with avatars or other children may include experiences with age-appropriate content and language, so we think. Web controls are offered so parents can be sure of it. But, like all things, at a cost. From an economic standpoint, parents can spend in an upwards of $30 for a toy and a chance for a child to play with it online or spend a few bucks for a toy and a chance for a child to play with it with his brother.

While cyber-based toys see a rise in popularity in 2008, parents are concerned on how they are affecting their child's mental growth. A child playing online can learn typing skills and understand computer technology at an earlier age but this will not exactly translate into higher intellectual development for the child.

Educators and parents want to preserve childhood and the developmental milestones that nurture the integral steps to a growing mind. Balancing traditional toys that make you "think" is the best way to incorporate virtual play into a child's precious playtime hours. If this means buying a box of blocks and cans of clay along with virtual pets to keep a busy preschooler engaged, then so be it. Toys are catalysts for learning new skills and tech toys do have their place but are not meant to "re-place" traditional play.

As this new generation of technology and play unfolds, new applications are being built for children to use but the basic patterns of human developmental learning have remained static over time. Technology is only an application to use brain-based skills. It's not the means to increase them.

In this new age of technology, avatars, web controls and online toys, realize that play is changing and as each generation has it's classics, Gen Z may not be able to "pass down" that favorite stuffed toy..... without a website attached to it.