This morning, a title caught my attention on the front screen of
the international edition of the NYT: “Sign
of Hope: Children Playing Again.” That sounded quite extraordinary, so I looked
at the teaser beneath. It started with: “The
sight of children bouncing balls and using swings has given at least a glimpse
of normalcy.” The rest of the sentence, though, indicated that the article was
not about what I thought: it noted that those surprising signs of normalcy among
children were on display “even if many are orphaned or burdened by awful
memories of the storm.”
When I clicked on the front-page title, it turned
out the title of the article which lay hidden was more precise. It read : “For
Philippine Children, Return of Play Is a Sign of Hope.” Which is all well and quite
heart-warming, but still prompted me to think: how about those millions of children
in non-devastated, well-off, WEIRD regions of the world who in recent decades
have suffered from a historically unprecedented degree of play deprivation? I am
afraid there is no similar hope for them lurking beyond the sociotechnological
horizon.
