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The Compass: Why We Play: Adulthood and the importance of play

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Adulthood

26/01/2022 GMT

Adulthood and the importance of play

Why We Play

BBC World Service - The Compass, Why We Play, Adulthood and the importance of play

What role does play have in our adult lives and how can it increase productivity at work?

As an adult you have responsibilities, and life settles into routine. Researchers have found that even in the most boring jobs, workers find ways to introduce elements of play to make the time pass, while people with more creative occupations use play to free their imaginations and release creativity. The Situationist art movement of 1950s Paris thought that play was a political act, and that the city could be used as a playground to rebel against the restrictions of capitalism. Their legacy lives on in the immersive “street games”, such as snakes and ladders played in multi storey car parks and city-wide zombie hunts. But this natural tendency to play is also being co-opted by employers, some of whom want to “gamify” boring jobs, to make workers more productive by turning the tasks into a game, or who encourage their employers to play at work to make them more creative. Can workers really be asked to play on demand, and what happens when they play in ways that the employers never expected or wanted?

Presenter: Steffan Powell 
Producer: Jolyon Jenkins

(Photo: Performers of The Free Association. Credit: Lidia Crisafulli)

The Compass: Why We Play

As we take our first steps into the world, playing is how we explore and understand it.

Play is universal across human cultures and time. Most mammals play, even into adulthood, but it’s an evolutionary puzzle: at best, time spent playing looks like time wasted; at worst, having your attention diverted by play puts you at risk of being eaten by a predator. But humans are the pre-eminent playful species, from babies’ rattles through to bridge clubs for seniors. It’s claimed that play makes us creative, helps us select mates, and staves off cognitive decline. This series looks at play across cultures, through time, and during the course of a single human life.  It’s a universally-relevant exploration of why play is both the most joyful and the most serious part of all of us.

Image: An adult passes a child a plastic brick (Credit: Getty Creative)

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