Despite the efforts of parents to keep kids away fro screen time, most kids do spend a substantial amount of time in front of the screen, either watching cartoons or playing video games on smartphones.
In fact, kids are spending even more time in front of screens during this lockdown, and which is most parents are getting panicky and buying a variety of toys for their kids in order to veer them away from screens.
But this raises a relevant question – can video consoles (and even video games) be considered as toys?
I spent a little time googling, and I came up with this thread, which says:
While everything can be classified as “toys”, but gaming consoles were specifically designed to be toys right from the beginning, whereas things like computers and cars were really not designed to be toys from the start.
One of the reasons gaming console maker Wii is successful because it considers itself a toy. Little Big Planet (Sony) is also doing well because it targets only the young audience.
Ninendo also targets young audiences and most of its games are “kid-friendly”; Mario is okay for kids and parents know this. There are a lot of 10-year-old kids who own a Wii.
A toy primarily serves two things:
- It provides entertainment.
- It must not be very complicated to use
- It must be educational? (I see this as more of an advertising gimmick adopted by many toy companies)
A computer cannot really be a toy unless it has reduced its functionality substantially, is much cheaper, and has entertainment value as well. Most video game consoles satisfy these requirements.
What do you think? Please share your comments below?
Funtoyworld is a family-managed website with me (Ben), and my wife doing most of the work. We are proud parents of two wonderful kids and love reviewing toys. We have a firm but friendly “democratic parenting” style and offer several practical suggestions backed by extensive research. Our own experience with raising two children prompted us to share our knowledge. Read more.
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