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The Compass: Why We Play: Adolescence: Discovering identity through play

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Adolescence: Discovering identity through play

19/01/2022 GMT

Why We Play

BBC World Service - The Compass, Why We Play, Adolescence: Discovering identity through play

How video games help teenagers to navigate issues of anxiety, depression, and identity

How successful video games help teenagers to navigate issues of anxiety, depression, and identity.

As we grow into adolescence, the playfulness of childhood seems to disappear. Teenagers discovering their identity are engaged in a serious quest. There are unwritten rules to learn and to follow, and to be too spontaneous puts you at risk of ridicule. But while teenagers are less playful they are playing nonetheless, the obvious examples being sport and video games. As today’s teenagers live in a culture where the boundaries of the real and virtual are ever more fluid, video games offer a space free of adult supervision, where they can make friends (both on and offline), rehearse their identities, and accumulate “cultural capital”. Far from the stereotypes of the solitary gamer playing violent shooter games, many of today’s successful video games help teenagers to navigate issues of anxiety, depression, and identity. In Lagos, we find researchers using virtual reality games to help schoolchildren to understand and develop empathy for those from different ethnic backgrounds. And we ask whether playfulness can help teenagers and young adults communicate messages to potential partners.

Presenter: Steffan Powell. 
Producer: Jolyon Jenkins

(Photo:  A teenager smiles as he plays a video game. Credit: Getty Images)

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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