Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/the-changing-world-of-toys-and-toy-play/5016611/
Children learn about themselves and their world from their play with toys. Over the past half century there has been a remarkable transformation of the toy world of children. Toys have changed in quantity, quality, and level of technology. Mass production has made inexpensive toys available in enormous quantities, and in seemingly unlimited variety. Once given to celebrate special occasions such as birthdays and holidays, toys are now routinely purchased all year long. Comforting toys of wood, cotton, and wool are now made of synthetic materials. Microchip embedded toys that mimic human behavior have replaced the wind up and battery operated toys of the past. Too many toys, given too often, made of synthetic material, and run by computer chips have denied children many of the benefits they once took from interacting with less high tech playthings.Too many toys, too often
Toy play is one of the ways children nourish their disposition for imagination and fantasy. Like other human potentials, imagination and fantasy can only be fully developed through practice.
The sheer number of toys owned by contemporary children weakens the power of playthings to lead children into the world of make-believe. Familiarity breeds contempt but so, too, ...