Not just playthings

When I think of toys, I don’t remember screens or charging cables. I remember my sister and I sitting on the floor with a small wooden choppusaman set, cooking elaborate meals for guests who never arrived. I remember the marapachibommai dolls that appeared every Navaratri, quietly watching over our noisy games. I remember marbles that vanished into roadside drains, kites that got stuck on electric wires, and cricket matches that ended only when someone’s mother came searching. Those toys never told us what to do. We told them. Today, when I watch children around me, their toys seem to be in charge. The toy talks, the game sets the rules, and the screen announces when they have won. Even stories are no longer invented; they are downloaded. It feels as though imagination has been quietly outsourced to software. This is not to say that today’s toys are useless. Many of them are extraordinary. Children now build robots, learn basic coding, and explore distant planets without leaving their bedrooms. If someone had shown me virtual reality as a child, I might never have stepped outside myself. Technology has undeniably brought wonder into play. But it has also changed what play means. Earlier, play had no destination. We were not collecting points or completing missions. We were simply passing time, and in that unstructured, “wasted” time, we learned how to negotiate, how to lose, how to wait, and how to make peace after arguments. Today, play increasingly resembles training: faster responses, higher scores, constant upgrades, the pressure of the next level. What worries me even more is how solitary play has become. Children may be connected to hundreds of players online, yet rarely play together in the same physical space. Parks stand empty. Living rooms are silent except for the tapping of screens. Even birthday parties now often find children sitting in corners with phones, instead of chasing each other across the floor. Toys, too, have become clever salesmen. Every game leads to another product. Every cartoon turns into a backpack, a lunchbox, a set of stickers. Children are learning to desire long before they learn to question. As adults, we speak anxiously about consumerism, but it now enters life far earlier than we realise. Then there is the strange new reality that toys are no longer silent companions. Some listen. Some track habits. Some analyse behaviour. When I was young, the worst that could happen was that my toy would break. Today, a toy can quietly collect information about a child who does not even know what data is. Perhaps the biggest loss, however, is not physical activity but boredom. We had long afternoons when nothing happened, and those were often the moments when the best games were invented. Now, the instant boredom appears, a screen rushes in to fill it. There is no waiting, no wandering of the mind. I do not believe we need to reject modern toys or attempt to return to some imagined golden past. That is neither possible nor necessary. But we do need to ask who is shaping childhood today — the child or the device? There should still be space for wooden utensils and festival dolls, for muddy shoes and scraped knees, for games without rules and without winners. Let children learn technology, certainly — but also let them learn about themselves. Once, toys were companions in growing up. They were not designing childhood; they were simply sharing it. Somewhere along the way, that difference has begun to matter. adhithya.jeyachandran@gmail.com Published - February 22, 2026 06:17 am IST