Are We Having Fun Yet?

Academics have a way of taking the fun out of anything, and contemporary play research is hardly an exception. Although the grandfather of play research, Johan Huizinga, could turn an eloquent and upbeat phrase, much of the learned writing on the topic of play has been technical, abstruse, and frighteningly dry.

Consider the following, penned by researcher E.A Plaut in 1979: "Play activity in adulthood reveals the masterful mature function of the ego, which, temporarily dominating id and superego, integrates their components into ritualized expression within a structured, articulated framework." Now that sounds like fun.

Granted, the psychoanalytic tradition isn't known for much humor; Freud himself argued, back in 1908, that adults do not play, and his adherents have been trying to explain the gaffe ever since. Yet even outside psychoanalysis, play researchers often seem strangely detached from the nature of their topic. "Drawing upon the theory. . . of play as a metacommunicative frame created interactively," begins one 1987 article, "this study examined how adults frame play through their messages and behaviors."

Another researcher argued that play stops being play when the "observing ego loses its role and the capacity to pretend is lost, or at least sharply changed from one of primary significance to a secondary or tertiary role in the behavior and subjective experience, allowing for maturational and developmental changes in such capacities and tolerances." No kidding.

Play research, like any other research, requires exactitude and scientific detachment. But the dry analysis Of play seems to reflect the rising mainstream tendency to regard play and playfulness as distinct "things" to be observed, instead of qualities of feeling to be experienced. Some researchers now wonder whether the "psychologization" of play by the academic community isn't itself at least partly to blame for our growing inability to simply play. Like amateur scientists, we've all begun to subject ourselves and our experiences to relentless analysis.

Not surprisingly, many play researchers seem to be a pretty dour lot. Several interviewed for the accompanying article, for example, were quite pessimistic about the likelihood of any significant improvement in the quantity or quality of adult play in America. They note that leisure time for most Americans continues to decline. (The average American has only 16.5 hours of leisure per week.)

As well, they argue that for many adults a raging self-awareness and an almost militaristic commitment to professionalism is hobbling our capacity to simply "enjoy the moment."

In fact, some researchers confess, almost guiltily, to their own failure to balance work and play. One recalled sitting through a meeting with a department colleague while secretly wishing to leave and go do something fun. "It was ridiculous," the researcher says. "We were both in leisure studies. We both realize how important leisure is supposed to be. And yet I realized there was no way I could say to my colleague that I'd had enough of the meeting and that I wanted to go. In everyone, I think, there's this tension between what we say we believe and what we're willing to act on."