CYP Now - Lack of access, not technology, is enemy of play

I often hear that “youngsters nowadays have had their imaginations ruined by technology – when I was young, all we needed was a Raleigh Chopper, a Rubik's cube, roller skates, the street”. I don't believe that children today have less appetite to play – it's a lack of opportunities to access play that is the key issue.

Deborah McMillan is former children's commissioner for Jersey

Childhood has changed dramatically in the past 20 years largely thanks to the internet and digital technology. There are no longer scheduled times to watch TV – no Grange Hill to rush home for, before going back outside to play with your friends. No more chatting on the phone or making mixtapes.

Instead, there's the dizzying feed of TikTok and the luscious hyper-reality of Instagram and a million other things to make the world around us seem painfully ordinary by comparison.

But do we really believe that? Can we honestly say, hand on hearts, that the pull of technology is so strong, and its effects so corrosive, that the whole notion of a “good old-fashioned childhood” has been sucked down a digital rabbit hole, never to be seen again?

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