213. The psychology of play

our childhood and our teen years. But once we kind of start getting up there, all of that is apparently meant to stop. Our life revolves around work and commitments, financial and family obligations, and that kind of slice of the pie that is devoted to personal freedom and playfulness is meant to get smaller and smaller. Here's what I believe. I think that we and the world in general do

not appreciate the value of play. Way into adulthood, we do not really prioritize space in our life to be unproductively social, to just hang out and be silly, to be adventurous and imaginative, because there is so much that takes up our focus. And I think that is why a lot of us seem to feel like the older we get, the less joy there is in life. We're losing this sense of wonder, We're losing out on something vital. Despite that, there are so many proven benefits of play.

Stronger relationships, better friendships, reduce stress, greater creativity, better overall happiness. So today I want to really present to you my argument for bringing back play dates for adults. When we were kids and we would like have our parents call around to our friends' houses and you know, schedule an afternoon together, and the hours would you know swim past. It was so delightful and it was so fun to just literally spend hours not doing much, but doing it

with somebody else. And we all know that's harder. Now we don't hang out like we used to. There are a lot of factors to blame. Technology is always the first culprit, but also just how busy we are the time constraints and the societal beliefs about what it means

to be an adult. We are meant to be serious and we're meant to be mature, and that kind of creates a lot of psychological restraints as well, like the fear of judgment or guilt and the conditioned behavior that comes along with that to be more mature and responsible

and professional. But today we are going to break down what psychology has to say about the value of play, how important it is to have unstructured moments where you just hang out with others, even when we feel silly about doing it, why we might be missing out, and how we can actually bring back this spark and this energy into our lives. We are also going to talk about concepts like parallel play, play personalities, extraversion, introversion, ambi version,

and so much more. I cannot tell you how excited I am for this episode. I feel like so many of us already know this to be true. We are craving more in person opportunities for connection. We're craving more ways to really disconnect from reality for a little while and just get back to that childhood wonder and awe and joy and enjoyment and hopefully this persuades you even more so, convinces you even more so that this is

something that you need to implement in your own life. So, without further ado, let's talk about what I believe for all the highly compelling reasons why we should be bringing back adult play dates. As always, let's start super simple here. Let's start from the beginning. Why do we actually need play? When we kind of think about our hierarchy of needs as human beings, things like food and water, safety, belonging, community, love, money,

they all seem fairly obvious. Play less, so, especially as adults, play really falls off of our list of essentials, even our list of extras or luxuries. For children, we understand it's a bit more valuable. Play is actually quite essential to how children learn those fine and gross motor skills, They learn how to socialize and collaborate, develop their imagination

and abstract thinking. Kind of get the picture. There were some really fast papers and articles written in the late nineties and early two thousands that suggested that play deprivation or play deficiency, children who were not allowed to play freely as children perhaps grew up to have less empathy, more difficulty forming social bonds. How did they discover this.

They looked at mass shooters and people who were incarcerated and people who had done jail time, and they compared their level of free play as children to a separate sample of people who hadn't done sheell time. And what they found was one of the differences was this capacity

to be playful and this capacity to be free as children. Obviously, there were a ton of other factors associated with that as well, but the presence or absence of play and the quality of play, particularly in childhood development, does have proven long term impacts on our emotional intelligence, our resilience,

even things like brain size. Even more evidence showing us that parts of our brains that are most developed in those early years between like eighteen months to eight years are the ones that respond best to the kind of active experience induced by being playful. It's all about the neural connections that play builds through problem solving and creating and imaginating and also cooperating. That makes it so valuable. But does that end when we turn eighteen? You know,

have we done? Has play kind of done all that it can for us? Those neural systems are in place now, it's time to get serious. We don't need it anymore. You know, it's done what it's good for. Obviously, I don't think so, absolutely not. Play is not just frivolous, and it's not just for kids. It's something that is an inherent part of our human nature, probably even our animal nature as well. It might seem like a waste of time or unproductive, but there was this really fascinating

New York Times article that put it this way. That is the whole point, that is the whole point of play, is that it is silly and unproductive and a quote unquote waste of time. Play is a way of deliberately bringing about joy without that joy being attached to some specific goal or requirement. It is just like fun for the sake of fun, whereas so much about our adult lives is goal or outcome orientated. You know, we ride

our bikes because we want to lose weight. We go to pilates class to get in shape, We do work trivia to maintain social connections. We cook simply to feed ourselves. Everything that perhaps used to bring us joy as children or even as teenagers becomes something that is part of a broader goal and kind of part of a broader

structure and routine. But when we are doing things like playing frisbee in the park or I don't know, mermaids in the pool, or charades with our friends, even video games, we're kind of stepping back from the structure of our days lives. And it's within those daily lives that we often are kind of forced to follow a set of rules or forced to need to be ticking something off

of our to do list. When we give ourselves those opportunities to take a step back, to enjoy the moment, to be silly, we're channeling this in a child version of us that still exists, and we're bringing them to the surface and with it we're bringing a sense of wonder and a new excitement to things. We're kind of turning off the stress tap, I would say, for just a second being present, and of course when playtime involves a friend, the benefits just skyrocket. So that's why the

adult playdate needs to make a comeback. And by adult playdate, I mean times where we go to each other's houses or the park or the beach with the attention of creating and doing something unseerious and inherently in joy like ar like scrapbooking, lego, board games, make believe, playing Tiggy, hide and Seek, PowerPoint nights. I see that on TikTok all the time, and I'm going to say, I'm somebody who adopts this as part of my life. And there is something so sweet about feeling like a kid again.

It is one of those weird things that have greatly improved my mental health. Getting to be childish with your friends. It feels equally nostalgic and fulfilling. When I was still living in Canberra, well into being an adult, me and a group of friends used to have a weekly game of Sardines. And if you don't know this game, it's where one player goes and hides and all the others have to find them and like sardine up to them.

It's like the opposite of Hide and Seek. And those moments are so joyous and they are such treasured memories. And nowadays I like to incorporate it through doing things like Lego with my boyfriend, Like we recently did an Lego set, and when I tell you, we were giggling, we were so focused, we were enjoying it so much. I did not think about work. I did not think about life for even a second, and there are so

few circumstances where we get that feeling. On top of that, the reason why I think adult play dates need to make a comeback is because friendships become even harder during this decade, and there's a lot of evidence that unstructured time is what we actually need to improve our relationships. Because when when it's such a structured activity, when it's such a structured hangout, like we are going to dinner and we have to talk for two hours and I'm going to be that's my time to be social, we're

still feeling like we need to be on. But when the hangout is unstructured, it has been proven to create a deeper connection, a deeper bond. It also ensures that we have more shared memories the older we get, ones that we can really reminisce on the same way that we tend to be nostalgic for our childhood memories. There's less sense of obligation, which I think we all need, and it's just less effort because there is this joint activity that we're doing together and it's typically cheaper than

having drinks and dinner. You know that can cost like sixty dollars a person seventy dollars a person. But I also think that we can do a bit better in maintaining our social lives than sitting in a busy, loud, too dark restaurant for two hours once a fortnight and thinking that that it's going to help us maintain a relationship. There is a lot of evidence that as a generation and as a society, we need that, especially in our twenties. There is this developmental and social shift that occurs when

we hit our twenties. I think our mid twenties in particular, where we suddenly enter environments and specifically, I think a life chapter that no longer promotes being effortlessly social. It becomes very deliberate, restrictive, time constrained, and the things that are restraining, that is responsibilities, and the responsibilities put pressure on our limited mental resources, meaning that we're busy, we

are burnt out, we're often stressed. If you think about it, when you were a teenager, like running around during the summer or after school or on the weekends, and you had no money, you didn't have a nine to five, Your biggest worry was your homework. You kind of had to make the most of what you had, so you were more creative and you probably had a lot more fun. It wasn't just that we were younger, it was also that time and history before the invention of such an

omnipresent technology. And what I'm referring to is of course our phones. And you know what, I Am not going to be somebody who sits here and puts all the blame on technology, because I actually think it's had a lot of benefits. But it has also meant that we can swap face to face interactions with texting and sending each other tiktoks and interacting from our couches. We just spend a lot less time together. And we've seen that since the late two thousands, that is when the decline

really rapidly started to take off. We aren't seeing people as much anymore. And the times when people do see each other as in more structured environments like school or the workplace. So how do we actually know this well through this really cool resource called the American Time Use Survey. So this is an in depth measure of how the average American spends their time. So economists at the A

to US, which is where the survey is conducted. They basically carefully track time spent socializing, meaning the time that we spend having face to face interactions, and they do that across more than a dozen demographics, multiple different areas, from a huge sample size, and what they've found year after year is that broadly, real world socializing has declined for all genders, all ages, all ethnicities, all incomes, all education levels, and definitely like something that we need to

take account for is COVID nineteen, but we never bounced back from that period of isolation, and the trend towards isolation predates the pandemic. I feel like I don't need to list off, like why this is so concerning, right, but you know, it's more loneliness, more stress, more isolation, more mental health concerns. And it's only recently that the World Health Organization, you know, declared loneliness basically an epidemic, basically a pressing health threat. It's not just a personal problem,

it's a collective problem. One of the really curious trends to jump out of that data that I was talking about before is that a lot of Americans, in particular that's where the study was conducted, have traded people for pets when it comes to social time. You know, in two thousand and three, the typical female pet owner spent much more time socializing with humans than playing with her cat or her dog, And by twenty twenty two this

is flipped. The average woman with a pet now spends more time actively engaged with her pet than she spends hanging out face to face with humans. Here's the thing, what does a pet have to offer that may not always be on the table with others? Play like a constantly willing companion to hang out with, to have fun with. And you know, obviously they can't talk to us. It's not the same, but maybe that's what we're kind of

after It is just a bit more fun. We also need to talk about some of the more psychological reasons we've stopped having designated time and space for play. I spoke about it before, But the older we get, the expectations around how we should behave change. Our behavior is more closely scrutinized. There's less room for mistakes. People want

us to be mature and serious and responsible. Otherwise they might say we have peter Pan syndrome, or they might say that we're child But the more we hide the fact that we each of us having innate need to just literally have fun, the more of a habit it becomes through self policing and conditioning, until even when we have that opportunity, we can't actually draw on that playfulness. We can't draw on that joy. It's so locked away. And I think our imagination is a muscle and it's

definitely weakened from a lack of use. I kind of experienced this recently. It was so interesting. I was catching up with an old friend from university, one of my old roommates, and we haven't seen each other in months, and we're goofing around and we're laughing, and this woman literally turned around. We were outdoors. She turned around and she shushed us. In public outside she shushed us, and

she tutted at us. And that was exactly the example I needed for this episode of how society polices us and conditions us into being serious. And it made me quite sad. You know, we were two people who were obviously so excited to see each other, so full of love and delight and laughter, and that was annoying to her and I kind of, you know, I don't like to judge people in public, but I was a bit like, Wow, maybe you've lost your spark a little bit. Maybe you're

having a bad day. I don't know, but it kind of proved a point that I had for myself. Right there was a bit of cognitive bias, confirmation bias happening, which is that we just don't know how to have fun the way that we used to. I think, despite all that, and despite our worries that if we were to be like, hey, friend, I want to have an adult play date, they might be like, that is really weird,

and no one likes the feeling of being rejected. Despite that, despite the reasons not to do it, I think we need to make this happen, and I want to tell you exactly how we can do that, how we can bring play back into our social lives after this shortbreak. Play is a lot more scientific than you might think. I think we tend to assume it's just having fun, but you know, for one person, fun might be playing video games for eight hours straight, whereas you know for

other people it's physical players, creative players, adventurous. If you want to have more adult play dates, if you want to center play in your life, as they think you should, even doing solo playdates, you need to know your play personality. So this idea of a play personality was created by like one of the grandfathers of play psychology, doctor Stuart Brown. He went on to create the National Institute for Play, which that is such a cool job, that's like a

dream job title. But basically by observing children, teenagers, and importantly adults, he began to realize that how we enjoy our downtime is not the same for all of us. So if you want to connect with someone else through play, personalities kind of have to be aligned. And there are eight distinct play personalities that we can have. So let's go through them and just think about which of these might relate best to how you like to have fun.

So the first one is the collector. The thrill of play for the collector is you know, collecting objects or experiences, trinkets, clothes, wine, coins, antiques. They might be a lot more solitary, but what they're really focused on is, you know, making a collection of things that they can feel proud of going out and sourcing these things, finding these things, and they often have really intense social connections with others who share this passion.

Then we have the competitor. Competitors access the euphoria and the joy of play by participating in a competitive game with specific rules. They are not just playing for the sake of playing. They are playing to win. So if you like that, you know, keep score. If you like games in which you can win, I think that is probably going to be your primary play personality. This is

people who really like playing in team sports. They might like single player video games where they might be like, oh, that wasn't fun unless I got something out of it, and the thing I got out of it was success. Then we have the creator slash artists play personality. And for this person the creator artist, the joy is found in just making things and they don't have to be good. It could be painting, pottery, sculpture, you know, knitting, sewing,

even gardening is also included in this. And the thing is is that this creator artist type, they might never even show what they've created to the outside world. The point for them is just to make something, to make something maybe goop you know, beautiful or functional, sometimes like ridiculous, and and to make something that they enjoyed the process of making, not just for the sake of making. Then we have the director. Directors play by planning. They might

enjoy you know, executing scenes or events. I always think about like a film director. Obviously, most people who have this play personality aren't even aware of their motive in playing this way. They just like having the power to make things happen. They like creating things by directing things. They're just kind of like born organizers. They are the party givers. They are the planners of great excursions. They bring people together, they create like really fun events. That's

the director. Then we have the explorer, you know, exploring. I think that that you know, the name kind of says most of it. But it can be physical like literally you know, traveling, going on hikes, going on road trips. Or it can be emotional, you know, searching for a new feeling or deepening feeling through music, through movement. It

might also be through exploration of a new subject. And this is what I found really interesting about this play personality is people who really like, I don't know, getting into a deep dive on Wikipedia, or who get really fixated on one specific subject for a while. That often has a lot of overlap with people who are neurodivergent as well. We have three more to go. We have the joker. The joker's play always revolves around like some kind of foolishness, like pranks or comedy or stand up

that's like such a classic form of playfulness. Then we have the kinesthetic player. So these are people who like to move. Maybe they even need to move in order to think. They like to naturally push their bodies and feel the result. Obviously, run clubs at the moment are a huge thing. A lot of kinesthetic players are probably really drawn to that, you know, yoga dance. They just like the openness of it all. They you know, competition isn't really the main focus. They just like engaging in

play through movement. And finally, we have the storyteller. So imagination is really the key to the joy that this person gets from play. They might be you know, novelist, always writing stories or watching movies or you know, writing screenplays or making cartoons. They feel really engaged in stories and they experience the thoughts and the emotions of these characters in the story really intensely. People who are performers

are often storytellers. So people who like acting or giving lectures or poetry or whatever, normally they have the storyteller, play personality. So these are the eight play personalities. And you know what I love about the play personalities. They reveal to import aspects of this that we haven't spoken about before. Play is firstly more than we think it is. You know, it can be researching, it can be collecting, it can be daydreaming, it can be you know, physical movement,

it can be exercising, whatever it is. I think that makes it so much more accessible. It's not just about being silly and chasing each other around. It's like quite intellectual and spiritual at times. And secondly, it goes to show that play isn't just social. It's also solo, and it's also parallel. And that last part is so important. Obviously, we're talking about adult play dates, so solo play is

kind of on the back burner today. We really want to talk about playing with other people, playing nice with other people. We're going to return to that at a later date. But parallel play is one of my all time favorite concepts in psychology. It could even be number one. To be honest, I talk about this all the time. I think it has so many positive and hidden applications to our lives and especially to our twenties. So parallel play. We normally only hear it referred to in children, but

you know who cares. We are all children at heart. It's basically a form of play where we play adjacent to someone else, so we don't try and influence their behavior. We're in the same room, but we're each doing something that we love, and we're deriving joy from that separately, but in parallel knowing that the other person is feeling lots of the samely and fascination and happiness next to you, so you're kind of sharing in the feeling but doing

the activity separately. Parallel play is, in my mind, and maybe this is overstating things. Tell me if you think it is. I think it's one of the answers to rising loneliness in our society because it is so low effort. You still get to do what you love, and you still get to do what you enjoy, but you have company. So there are only two rules for parallel play. Firstly, you're both doing something that you enjoy as individuals, and secondly,

you're not like completely ignoring each other. So one therapist put it this way, if one person is, you know, playing really intense immersive video games, and it doesn't matter to them whether their partner or their friend is in the room or not. That's not parallel play. It's like more deep than that. You invite a friend over for a movie and one of you scrap books whilst you knit. You know, you're at the beach reading whilst they're building

a sand castle. You're separate but equally tapped into the same experience, the experience of play and doing it next to each other and still being involved with each other. There are a few other ways that we can really bring that parallel play into our lives, right inviting a friend over, like I said, to both do something separately that you were equally engaged in, or going to like a pottery class together. Going for a run together is

the perfect example of parallel play. Like you are both on your own mission to get the run done and over. Maybe if you enjoy running, it's more enjoyable than that. But you know you're both doing the same thing, but you are doing it separately. You're not you know, one of you isn't moving one leg and the other person moving the other. You're enjoying the same experience in each other's presence, but doing it separately, if that makes sense.

And it's so amazing how when you start implementing this you really see your relationships change because so often now I think socializing as an adult involves alcohol, involves structure, involves activities done at nighttime. And when we bring in parallel play, it's like we have more room to be creative and actually do something that's going to make us feel good at the end of the day and feel better and feel like our cup is really full. There are a few other ways that we can really bring

play back to life. Literally, approach hanging out with your friends every time as a playdate and call it that, Like, say, do you want to come over and do an activity? Do you want to have a board games night? Do you want to do some arts and crafts? Make that the event, make that the playdate, be the instigator, and make it an experience. This is something that I think all of us need someone like this in our lives.

Right the person who is going to be willing to put the extra effort in into making a hangout an activity feel like you are engaged and involved and like there are memories to be made there and you're really joyful and playing together. I would say, devote like a day once a fortnight to a playdate and be intentional about it. Make the extra ten percent of effort to switch from dinner and drinks to you know, a movie in a board game night, or go into a board

game bar. Like those things exist. They're so fun. Join a social sport team. So me and my friends do this at the moment, and sometimes it's such a like such a hassle to get everyone to show up, but when you do, it's like, Okay, we have this one night a week that we feel obligated to go to, which sometimes is a bit stressful, but when we get there, we know we're going to have fun and I don't think about work once and our endorphins. You rise and

we get a sweat up and we're laughing together. And it not only means that you see people more regularly because you have this thing that you go to together, but you actually are engaged in the experience of doing it with them, and you feel more present but also more relaxed, if that makes sense. And I think going back to that previous point because I kind of just hit on it briefly, but I want to go into it further, like I said before, be the instigator. Invite

people in find community through what you love. First, if it's sport, if it's art, people are more likely to show up and do things that they want to do, especially if you make it exciting, and especially if you bring community into that process. The other thing that I've been really committed to, and especially on weekends when the weather isn't terrible, is all we're making it a priority to be outside, to kind of move a hangout to somewhere scenic or nature based. I get it so much

easier in summer. So if you're like in the Northern hemisphere, congratulations, this is not too hard for you. But even like, choosing a physical activity indoors is so much more fun and more enriching, like especially when that's time in nature. The world is your playground. You get to go out and reconnect with who you are as a human and get some fresh air, and it's just joint experience and a special memory. I was speaking about this too a friend of mine the other day, and almost two years

ago we went on this hike. Honestly, it was probably three years ago. We went on this hike together and it was totally out of routine for us, we don't do it that much. And anytime I think about, like my core memories and experiences with this person, I couldn't tell you, like the last place we got in, I couldn't tell you the last meal that we had together. But I always reflect on this hike and I reflect on how special, meaningful it was also run chores together.

I am going to make an argument for the fact that chores are a form of play, and you can make them fun. And you can make them fun. You can make you can take something that is so adult and serious and often such a time commitment and enjoy it more when you approach it like you are a child.

And when you approach it by bringing someone along and you know, chatting with them while you do it, making jokes in the aisles, and taking those everyday experiences and being deliberate about your choice to make them interesting and bringing in new dimension to them. That is a form of play. Farmers markets great opportunity for this. If you live near one, It is going to take you the same amount of time as you go to the grocery store. And maybe they won't have everything that you want or

whatever that you know, whatever the problem is. But if you like invite friends and you go and do it there, it is that's a core memory there. That is a fun memory, that is a playful joy for wonderful time that you get to reflect back on together. Also engage in microplay, those small moments of glee games at the grocery store, in the parking lot with yourself, trying to avoid like the cracks in the road, like making funny voices, literally throwing a ball around at lunch. Those micro moments,

like micro habits, build up and accumulate. They put you back in touch with your imagination and with your just genuine enjoyment of life. And I do think that every small moment where we let ourselves be free and we let ourselves be a kid again and we kind of shirk off the responsibilities of adulthood make us happier people

and greatly reduce our stress as well. I just want to conclude this episode by saying, I get that play doesn't seem important and why we push it down our lists, But the people around you, when you provide them with the opportunity, they will really go for it. Everybody is really looking for opportunities to engage with people in a more meaningful way. Maybe it's like a hangover from the pandemic.

I don't know, But all those things that we miss about our childhood selves, our creativity and our appreciation for the small things, even our energy, even our sense of hope, but also the fact that the friendships we made back then were so immediately important and valuable and fun. I

think play is truly the answer to that. So however you find it in your life, please find a way to incorporate it, find a way to make it an essential the same way that you would make exercising in essential, or the same way that you would make going to work or going to the doctor and essential. Play is, in my mind, if you cannot tell one of those core self fulfillment and self actualation activities that we're neglecting.

And although they haven't I don't know if there's been a study on this, I feel like it's contributing to a lot of the modern day problems that people are trying to find solutions for the fact that we are made to be too serious and too disengaged too early. So thank you so much for listening to this episode. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you got something out of it. I hope that you are scheduling an adult playdate right now. Message your friends, see if you

can get into a pottery class. See if you want to go to the beach this weekend. Go and play tennis. I don't care what it is, make it happen, and thank you for listening along. If you did enjoy this episode, please feel free to leave a five star review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you are listening right now. It helps the show to groote, it helps it reach new people, and it makes me really happy. I read every single one of your reviews. They really do make my day.

If you have an episode suggestion, if you have any feedback on this episode, if you are thinking about more ways that we could bring play into your life that I didn't mention, please feel free to DM me at that psychology podcast on Instagram. I'd love to hear from you. And until next time, stay safe, be kind, and be gentle to yourself. Please and thank you. We will talk very very soon.