Research dollars hard at work provide this week's "well, duh" moment:
We didn't know anything about the "science" of play. We just loved it -- and our parents no doubt did too. So, why did we play? Why not?
Fast forward, and play is now very much a science. "Why Do We Play" was this week's New York Times Magazine cover story. Writer Robin Marantz Henig suggests that with all the research that has been done on why we play, the importance of play, and what may be the loss of play in our children's lives as structured activities encroach on free time, the answers may still not be much clearer than: We play because it's fun.
That's when we're kids, of course. When we become adults, we sometimes get so desperate for fun that we actually turn it into hard work.
