Experiment "Playing with children's toys"

ArtEZ University of the Arts

2022

Seeking to understand more about the effects of playing, I conducted a small experiment with my classmates in October 2022. The first group of students arrived with me in the photography studio, where I had set up the toys in trays or otherwise by themselves on the floor. The students were invited to try to imagine that they were children again and to touch and play with anything, that there were no rules and no expectations. There was music playing in the background. There were 5 students at this moment (6 myself included).

These students were interested in what the experiment was about and took off their shoes and set off exploring the toys, first they looked around to find something that would be of their interest, then sat down to play, there was engagement and interest in this initial phase, there was a short roleplay when a student with a remote-control car started driving the car over the other students works and one student said: “Argh, mommy! She destroyed my toy!” and we laughed. Two other students arrived.

There was mostly interest in construction toys and there was some focused exploration where students sat down and seemed focused on what they were doing. They tried things out by touching and building, by turning it on and off. Soon after the two students came in there, a group was formed to play with the fishing game, they sat in a circle around the toy. One student left.

As four students left, two other students arrived, the toys had already been touched and played with at this point, the new students who arrived asked what they should do, I told them they should just play freely with no expectations, they sat down to play, there was a nice moment to connection and chat about the assignments. These two students left.

There was some awkwardness in the beginning and perhaps because of its openness the experiment felt broad, the students imagined there was a specific purpose I was looking for and therefore began to touch and play with the toys. The students seemed to be entertained for a while, and commented that they had fun. It was a photography studio in a school environment and therefore not a common place to play with toys.

The first group of students who arrived in an organized environment enjoyed more and expressed more positive feelings than the second group, who arrived when all the toys had already been touched and it looked chaotic in the room. One student in the end mentioned being overwhelmed by all the colours and another mentioned no longer being so awed by children’s toys despite still playing with different things.

Initially, there were comments mostly on the toys being played with, later in conversation, we spoke about the influence of play and toys in our childhood in shaping aspects of our lives as adults, presumably the play that took place early in our lives were enaction’s for the future types of lives we lead.