Is Too Little Play Hurting Our Kids?
Science Quickly
Scientific American
4.4 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 4 December 2023
⏱️ 15 minutes
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| 0:00.0 | Attention at all passengers. You can now book your train tickets on Uber and get 10% back in Uber credits to spend on your next train journey. |
| 0:11.0 | So no excuses not to visit your in-laws this Christmas. |
| 0:16.5 | Trains now on Uber. T's and C's apply check the Uber app. |
| 0:22.4 | It's not just moderate evidence, it's overwhelming evidence that if you take away |
| 0:29.1 | children's opportunities for independent activity. |
| 0:33.6 | They're not going to learn how to be independent, |
| 0:36.4 | and that's going to lead them to be anxious and depressed, |
| 0:41.0 | fearful about the future, and all the things that we're seeing now. |
| 0:47.0 | It's been declared a national emergency. |
| 0:50.0 | Mental health among children and adolescents decreased steadily between 2010 and 2020. |
| 0:56.0 | By 2019, suicide had become the second leading cause of death for those between ages 10 and 24. |
| 1:05.1 | But this mental health decline may have been decades in the making. And according to a team of researchers, it's partly because we're not giving kids |
| 1:10.1 | the independence they need. For science quickly, I'm Joseph and Peter Gray, I'm a research professor of psychology and neuroscience at Boston College. |
| 1:26.2 | In the September issue of the Journal of Pediatrics, Gray and his co-author is observed a continuous |
| 1:31.5 | increase in depression, anxiety, and suicide rates among children |
| 1:36.1 | and adolescents since at least 1960 and they link it to a decline in unsupervised play and |
| 1:41.9 | other independent activities. |
| 1:44.0 | Play is that how children pursue what's fun for them. |
| 1:49.9 | That's an immediate source of mental health. |
| 1:52.5 | You know, mental health really means I'm happy or I'm satisfied with my life right now. |
| 1:58.1 | Grace says that play and other independent activities also have far-reaching long-term effects on children's mental health and |
| 2:04.7 | resilience. I think that the real crisis is that young people are losing a |
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