Goofing Off

How a little play time can even be good for adults.

By Paul Roberts, published on July 01, 1995 - last reviewed on October 01, 2009

In 1938, the Dutch anthropologist Johan Huizinga advanced the then-radical notion that play might be its own end. In his seminal work, Homo Ludens (Man the Player), Huizinga argued that play did not necessarily serve some biological or psychological objective, but arose from, and was of value primarily as, an experience. Huizinga observed that this experience was often achieved via physical activity, but could arise from numerous other sources. Reading, gambling, watching soccer; all could produce the same mental state.

Huizinga regarded this play state as distinct from other states. He believed that it could occur only under specific conditions. It had to be absorbing. It had to include some element of uncertainty, and it usually involved a sense of illusion or exaggeration--in other words, play-pretend. Most important, Huizinga insisted that true play must exist outside ordinary life. That is, even though absorbed by the activity, the player is always conscious of the fact that the play is not real, that its consequences won't carry over into "real" life.

playing: safe

This distinction between real life and play life was critical to Huizinga's theory and remains central to the modern picture of play. In Huizinga's view, play is a safe place. It is bounded by explicit or implicit limits--time, space, rules, etc.--within which a player may not only comfortably surrender to the playful urge, but take chances, try on new roles, attempt tasks that, under normal circumstances, might be avoided as too difficult or unpleasant.

Play is a place for pleasure and gratification, but also conducive to experimentation and learning. For that matter, the novelty of a new experience or task can often add to the intensity of the play experience. Huizinga considers the "play element" to be central not only for individual psychology but also for society as a whole; he credited play as the fount for art, philosophy, poetry, knowledge, law, war, and most other forms of culture. "Civilization," Huizinga wrote, "arises and unfolds in and as play."

wired for play?

Huizinga's rather idealistic view of play has undergone significant modifications, particularly in terms of play's physiological components. Huizinga argued that the "intensity" and "absorption" of play find "no explanation in biological analysis." Yet more recent research suggests that play, or at least the playful impulse, is distinctly biological.

Humans and many other species are probably "wired" to play, or at least, neurologically predisposed to desire the levels of stimulation and the kinds of mental activity that play produces. Subjects placed in stimulus-deprivation tanks, for example, will soon suffer from a variety of physiological symptoms, including hallucinations. Likewise, too much stimulation provokes anxiety and discomfort.

In short, what Huizinga described as the experience of play, with its boundaries and its separation from real life, is probably more completely understood today as a state of optimal stimulation, or, to use Csikszentmihalyi's term, flow. According to Csikszentmihalyi, all human experience lies on a stimulus continuum, with "boring sameness" at one end and "anxiety-producing chaos" at the other. "It is in the enjoyable middle regions," he writes, that an individual's psychic energy "flows" most effectively and produces the greatest pleasure. Within this optimal state, Csikszentmihalyi says, an individual's capabilities are ideally balanced with the challenges of the particular task or activity. The result is a sensation of confidence, of being in control, but also of being completely absorbed or focused. Indeed, a key aspect of flow theory is the notion of attention. During flow experiences, Csikszentmihalyi says, we're able to artificially refine our focus or attention to a limited number of ideas or objects.

"When you are in a play setting, you're symbolically redefining what parts of the world are relevant to you." he says. "You can achieve a kind of artificial focusing: When you jump out of a plane to go skydiving, your mind cannot wander." Thus, for Csikszentmihalyi, like Huizinga, flow, or playfulness, is blissfully distinct from everyday life. There is a sense, he says, of "forgetting time, of feeling that your goals are clear, of getting clear and immediate feedback, not feeling bored, or anxious."

Flow theory may not get us any closer to the meaning of play, but it helps explain why play is so appealing and how it works as such a powerful motivator. One needn't see a classroom full of sleepy children or the crowd in a dentist's waiting room to understand that pleasurable engagement is infinitely preferable to either boredom or anxiety. As important, however, individuals in a state of flow or playfulness experience higher-than-normal levels of confidence and self-assurance. They have, according to Penn State's Godbey, "stopped asking questions about whether they can do something or whether they should do something."

In such a comfortable, poised state, they may actually be able to grasp new concepts or cope with difficult situations more easily, or at least be more willing to attempt them. Animal research suggests that many species use play as a form of problem-solving and of mastering new tasks and skills. Similarly, play is dearly central to development in children, providing them with a pleasurable, comfortable "space" to master new techniques, experiment with adult roles, and simply practice the fine, but difficult, art of being.