Wake-up Call: Is technology making your child dull?

Children in the UAE and across the GCC are increasingly engaging in passive recreation – social media, internet surfing, watching TV/video and digital gaming – at the expense of physical play, new research shows.

The third edition of the ‘Fun City Play Index’ by Dubai-based Landmark Group maintains that the increase in the number of passive recreational activities and the reduced physical socialisation depicts an unhealthy development among children.

The index exhibits varied playing patterns of children in three age groups - 2-3 years old, 4-6 years old and 7-12 years old – and how playing among children reduces as they grow older.

According to the 2014 index, children in the UAE and across three other GCC countries – Qatar, Bahrain and Oman – spend 16 per cent of their ‘play time’ watching TV/video, which has increased from 12 per cent in 2013.

Stats also revealed that while children are awake for longer hours as they grow older, which is as high as 15 hours among the 7-12 years old, they do not engage in multiple play activities that are necessary for their well-rounded development.

In addition, data shared in the index shows that the time spent by children on digital gaming is also up marginally at 10 per cent, while there is an emergence of internet/social media activities at 2 per cent this year.
 

Wake-up call for fathers?

In terms of parental engagement with the child, the index shows a concerning trend – the incidence of fathers playing with their child has reduced even further to from 7 per cent in 2013 to 4 per cent in 2014.

On the other hand, a whopping 62 per cent of mothers participate in their children’s play activities, thereby maintaining the main role in their children’s development.

The ratio of both parents spending time with their child stands at 18 per cent this year, which has increased from 14 per cent last year.
 

Individual Play Index scores

Age Group          UAE       Oman    Qatar               Bahrain

2-3 years             44          47          50          50

4-6 years             24          36          41          35

7-12 years          17          16          17          28


Where does all the time go?

Out of their total free time (time left after attending school and sleeping), 70-80 per cent of children spend a third of their playtime in passive play habits, a majority (55-65 per cent) of children spend only a quarter of their time in physical play while only 20-28 per cent of children spend as little as a tenth of their playtime in creative and role play activities.

This creates an imbalance in their developmental pattern, said experts.

Parents who wish to compute their child’s play index to get indicative advice based on a statistical understanding of their play behaviour may click here: Fun City Play Index Calculator.

Who do children play with, and what

According to children, they enjoy video games the highest in all four countries followed by role play, an indication of the appeal for it. However, this infers low engagement with other children from all age groups in all four countries.

Only one-third of children tend to play with friends while about 40 per cent of them mostly play only with siblings, and 31 per cent of children spend their time playing alone.

Among the conventional toys, dolls and stuffed toys are most frequently played with, followed by board games and cars.

Digital gaming, which is increasing in popularity among children, is a medium that needs to be used more effectively as a device for learning and development, say experts.

Almost 62 per cent of children own a tablet device and 57 per cent of them play on the tablet per week, thereby making it the most popular digital play device.

This also deduces the dependence on these games by 58 per cent parents in an endeavour to keep their children entertained. However, 62 per cent mothers do claim that they know what the child does on a personal gaming device while 48 per cent of parents agree to a lesser extent. Also, almost a third (34 per cent) of mothers feel that gaming is not good for her children.

Other findings

For 2-3 years old children, only 31 per cent of their time is spent on ‘physical play’ which should be higher and is vital for the development of their motor skills and sensory skills at this formative age.

An alarming 31 per cent is spent on passive recreational activities like watching TV. An inadequate 11 per cent of their time is spent on creative and role play activities which enhance their self-expression and imagination/creative skills and are crucial at this age.

Among the 4-6 years old, the physical activities are at an even more reduced rate of 26 per cent. The activities contributing towards intellectual development among 7-12 years old children seem highly neglected and stands at less than 10 per cent.

Social entertainment that involves going to malls, picnics or meeting friends and relatives has reduced to as little as 2 per cent in 2014 from 7 per cent in 2013; physical play increased marginally at 14 per cent this year.

Landmark Leisure, the department responsible for the index, said the evolved play index for 2014 includes qualitative inputs from nine experts that include child psychologists and school counsellors in addition to the quantitative data of play time activities that were analysed for 1,000 children between 2-12 years of age.

 “The addition of the qualitative study has aided us with a near to ideal scenario of playtime habits for children by adding age appropriate and healthy play activities for a well-balanced and well-rounded development of children. Adequate play also leads to making children happy which in turn will make them happy citizens of tomorrow,” said Silvio Liedtke, COO of Landmark Leisure.

UAE experts at the Dubai event to mark the launch the third edition of the index said social play and physical play are key drivers to increase learning opportunities and happiness levels among children.

The combined Index score for four countries for the three age groups are 48 for 2-3 years old, 32 for 4-6 years old and 23 for 7-12 years old, depicting a decreasing duration of playtime among the older age group.

Landmark said the index is an endeavour to contribute to children’s learning through playtime habits that lead to development of skills and proficiencies while playing.

“Underpinning the research is expert opinion on how different kinds of play support different facets of a child’s development,” said Aamnah Husain, qualified psychologist and parenting expert to Fun City.

“Even though every child and family is different, the trends show certain areas where parents can intervene to enhance their children’s development, whether he/she is getting enough sleep, or decreasing passive play, or increasing use of conventional toys, facilitating more social interaction or supporting play as opposed to only academics,” she added.

According to the findings, on an average, children among 7-12 years have an average of 15.3 hours on weekdays and 13.4 hours on weekends of free time on hand. Out of this, physical play among children in UAE is the highest at 16 per cent while Oman, Qatar and Bahrain are at 11 per cent.

The younger age groups spend relatively more time playing as compared to the older children. The older the child grows, he/she has less time on hand for play due to academic commitments.

Another interesting inference of the play index is while the play time increases considerably during weekends, children are not leveraging it with higher number of activities that are proportionate to the increase in playtime. This should be an opportunity to educate parents on better utilisation of weekend play time.

The good news, however, is that children’s play time is largely dominated by active play at 68 per cent of total play time. Nevertheless, about a third (32 per cent) of total play time is spent in passive play which is largely by watching TV/Videos.

A new addition this year in children’s playtime dynamics is the addition of socialization through media and internet surfing activities which are at 1 and 3 per cent, respectively.
 

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