Play is serious business. This sounds paradoxical and it is, in so much as something that comes so naturally to large-brained mammals (and birds, according to some authorities), that is so much fun, is so vital. Play is a banquet for the brain, a smorgasbord for the senses, providing nourishment for body and spirit: sad then that as a society we seem to be starving ourselves of it.
How does one define “play”? According to Patrick Bateson, emeritus professor of ethology at the University of Cambridge, “‘play’ as used by biologists and psychologists is a broad term denoting almost any activity that is not ‘serious’ or ‘work’ ”. Peter Gray, research professor at Boston College, writes that play “is self-chosen and self-directed”, an imaginative, non-literal activity “in which means are more valued than ends”, with “rules that are not dictated by physical necessity but emanate from the minds of the players”. And leading play theorist Bob Hughes, author of Evolutionary Playwork (2001), says that “the interaction we call social play enables children to discover that the rules governing any form of social interaction need to be revealed, explored and amended” via “protocols and meta-communication”. Full article
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