Jason Marconi's Academic E-Portfolio: The productive struggles in defining 'play'

Defining Play:

After a recent class I became wildly obsessed with trying to define play. I crowd sourced my co-workers and came away with some pretty interesting conversations. In an exchange of ideas I had a co-worker ask, "well how do you define what animals do? For example, when we see two lion cubs playing is that play?" My other coworker said "no that is actually practicing, they are practicing fighting but, we've labeled it adorable play". This then sent me on a thought process of playing as practice, which as it turns out some researchers and intellectuals have already discussed. I read “In the Laws, for example, Plato views play as a form of anticipatory socialization. If children were to become builders, he suggested, they should play at building houses”(Brehonyk, 2008). I found this was similar to how lions play in our discussion. I then stumbled on some research papers that detailed a brief history of play which was as a good starting point for my own definition.

First the classical theories. Dr. Verenikina,Dr. Harris and Dr. Lysaght writes “according to the earliest classical theory, ‘surplus energy’, humans play when they have excess energy, Schiller, a German philosopher, defined play as the aimless expenditure of exuberant energy” (Verenikina, Harris,& Lysaght, 2003)

The theory above was then questioned to mean quite the opposite sometime later. “Play as recreation or relaxation theory, like the surplus concept relates to energy levels. However, the recreation school of thought theorized play serves to restore energy. The last classical theory I wanted to highlight was the Recapitulation Theory. Recapitulation claimed children play to relive the evolutionary past, like swinging, climbing, and fighting which all come from what they view as our ‘animal stage’.(Verenikina, Harris,& Lysaght, 2003)

After reading these, I gained insight to the historical concepts of “play” but mostly from a rudimentary level focused on energy expulsion. This still did not help me with the creation of my own definition. It was hard for me to use the classical theories in forming my own meaning. This lead me to my brief review of modern theories.

After going through more research I found the psychoanalytical concept.

“Focusing on the emotional domain of development psychoanalytic theorists such as Anna and Sigmund Freud looked at play in terms of catharsis.( which if you needed a reminder definition like I did is: the process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong or repressed emotions.) Psychoanalytic perspectives explain the value of play in allowing children to express negative emotions that relate to situation in which they have no control. Play is seen to provide a safe context for expressing these emotion and gaining a sense of control”(Verenikina, Harris,& Lysaght, 2003)

While sometimes I couldn't quite wrap my head around psychoanalytics this definition brought up some interesting thoughts. Does gaming create a controlled sense of power for the player? Is that part of the draw? Is that why we can harness the power of gaming or play in education for positive learning results? To be honest, personally I have no idea that is where deeper research on my part is needed. I am new to this entire field study and taking it one day at a time.

I found John Huizinga (1950) discussed a new understanding of play as an activity that exists only for its own sake.

“According to Huizinga, an activity is play if it is fully absorbing, includes elements of uncertainty, involves a sense of illusion or exaggeration, but most importantly, true play has to exist outside of ordinary life. I like this definition. Furthermore, I enjoyed the modern definition of play as being “characterized as a spontaneous, self-initiated, and self-regulated activity of young children, which is relatively risk free and not necessarily goal-oriented. Play is intrinsically motivated” (Verenikina, Harris,& Lysaght, 2003)

Alot of the information tied play to early childhood development. Below you will find more thoughts on play in a specific childhood development theory from Theories of play. Retrieved from http://www.faqs.org/childhood/Th-W/Theories-of-Play.html

Expansion of Social Contacts or Relationships with Others

Play is the work of childhood. Even if you disagree with the paradox, it is clear that infants and toddlers relate with others through play. Moms and Dads play with little babies. Older infants explore their immediate surroundings by playing with toys. Toddlers like to run, jump, and climb - a form of sensorimotor play. Young children learn to relate to peers using simple games such as Simon Says. The ext lists 6 criteria that define the nature of play in childhood.

Child's play is intrinsically motivated because youngsters find it enjoyable.
Child's play is pragmatic. Children are more interested in the process of playing than in the product of play.
Child's play is creative and nonliteral; it resembles real-life activities but is not bound by reality.
Rules govern most of children's play, but they are implicit. When children are playing "school" they all seem to understand the rules, but seldom are they stated as in a game of chess.
Spontaneity is an important element of child's play, it occurs freely and is under the control of the child.
Play is a behavior that is free of emotional distress.

While this was a good start to understanding why children play, I have a hard time explaining what it is that makes me still like to (and want to) play as a thirty year old (with no signs of slowing down). I disagree with play as a behavior that is free of emotional distress. I have seen play between children grow into emotional distress on more than one occasion, which may just be an outcome of interaction instead of the play itself. There is a game called Dark Souls that is painfully difficult, on purpose. So difficult in fact, I have gotten emotionally stressed trying to beat it, part of the stress was I was being beaten, and it touched on a feeling of inadequacy for not being able to best a mere game. When I lose to another person I can say to myself train harder, or that person is better than you, when losing while playing a game I don’t find that same comfort. I find that to contradict play is free of emotional distress. I think the more video games embrace the art of interactive storytelling, the more emotions they will be able to illicit in this new modern age of technology ‘play’.

Those 6 criteria are defining the nature of play in childhood. I began to think maybe we can define the nature of play in adults. When I started to search if any type of research has been done into the nature of play in adults, I found a little bit of a dead end. Maybe someone can help me find research for this topic if any exists, and if not maybe someone can direct me how to be the first to start researching haha. It is possible that the extensive research done on "play" mostly what it is and what it isn't, is non-age specific. I did find papers detailing the importance of having an imagination as an adult, which would lead me to believe there is an importance that adults still engage in play on some level.

To answer the question what is play I find myself being sucked into the popular world of researchers and academics before me defining what play is not. I do not want to do that, I want to define what play is to me. Play to me is safe escapism where i'm free to correlate my own meanings and create my own reality. This just happens to be possible with playing educational games, simulations, role playing, and other forms of "games". I can create my own civilization and play economics, but it’s still a safe escape where I can create my own understanding and not worry about bankrupting actual people or starting a geopolitical war. Similar to playing 'war', I would be safe. I would also have created an escape where I can pretend to be the hero. I said in the class discussion a definition I'd like to stick with, Play is the ability to engage in a set of actions and interactions where learning and other outcomes are achieved through a nontraditional approach that focuses more on imagination, engagement, and participation in alternate realities. All of this is to achieve a desired outcome. Outcomes that can be reward, learning, or relaxation based. Whether it’s competitive, goal oriented, simulation, high score or open ended. I guess I think of play as an open ended definition that can't be pigeon holed to mean unproductive or outcome-less b/c a structured play like we're engaging in right now (I stated this during a class session in Second Life, where we were virtually having this ‘play’ discussion, ironic right!) can be both.

For my definition of game, I'd like to follow the classical definitions. A game is something that has rules, definitions, outcomes or goals. Something that has an achievable effect that makes participants want to 'do' something, be it, win, gain points, or avoid a bad outcome that would result by failing to adhere to the rules.

While I only referenced direct quotes I want to include additional reading that has lead to this epic definition quest: