TED Radio Hour

Have we forgotten how to play?

From an evolutionary perspective, the task of childhood is to become independent of parents. So children are born with very strong drives to play, to explore, away from adults. That away from adults is a big part of it because they need to get away from adults in order to practice the skills required for becoming an adult.

TED

How Play Boosts Your Creativity and Resilience | Katina Bajaj | TED

We've systematically removed everything that makes play what it is. The spontaneity, the freedom, the wonder, from all parts of adult life and replaced it with efficiency and achievement. And in doing so, we're losing the very survival skills that we need the most right now.

TED

How Play Boosts Your Creativity and Resilience | Katina Bajaj | TED

Play is what happens anytime we choose to do something without knowing exactly where it's going to end up. There are no instructions we need to follow or outcomes we need to achieve. Just two elements: intrinsic motivation and the freedom not to know the answer in advance.

It's Been a Minute

Feeling stuck? Take a side quest.

Adults spend so much time in environments where they're trying to control the outcome that play as a practice becomes about not knowing, not having an attachment to what the outcome is. Side quests release us from worrying about the outcome. Learning begins with inquiry. In fact, the word quest comes from the root question or inquiry.

TED

Can Play Change the World? | Play@TED Full Event | TED, the LEGO Group and the LEGO Foundation

We've reduced play to be this cherry on top of an already good life. But from a scientific perspective, it is much more fundamental than that. Play is what happens anytime we choose to do something without knowing exactly where it's going to end up.

TED

Why the Best Ideas Come from Play | Maxwell Pearce | TED

Play is the most important ingredient in every person and every industry's evolution.

TED

Can Play Change the World? | Play@TED Full Event | TED, the LEGO Group and the LEGO Foundation

We are living through a play deprivation crisis. We've systematically removed everything that makes play what it is — the spontaneity, the freedom, the wonder — from all parts of adult life and replaced it with efficiency and achievement. And in doing so, we're losing the very survival skills that we need the most right now.