Fewer Toys Gives Kids a Better Quality of Playtime, Study Claims (nypost.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from New York Post: Toddlers with just a few toys were more creative and focused than tots with more choices, according to the study, published in an upcoming edition of the journal Infant Behavior and Development. For the study, University of Toledo researchers gave kids under age 3 either four toys or 16 toys and recorded their playing habits, according to the report. "When provided with fewer toys in the environment, toddlers engage in longer periods of play with a single toy, allowing better focus to explore and play more creatively," researchers said. Fewer toys "promotes development and healthy play," they concluded. The bah humbug-boosting findings may be one reason to skimp on the stocking stuffers -- but parents have another option. Simply keep more toys in storage also helps rein in the attention of scatterbrained toddlers, researchers said.

Comments

Toys?

[msauve]

For the most part, our kids had more fun with the cardboard boxes the toys came in than the toys themselves.

Playing with a box encourages imagination. Playing with some intricate, structured toy just indoctrinates kids to fit in with societal expectations.

Re: Toys?

[alexo]

read the Bible, and live in the real world rather than the fantasy one you are creating.

The irony is strong with this one.

Re: Toys?

[Opportunist]

Again, I'd be surprised if it was only one. Moreover, there is no need to be the same person, things get merged together all the time. It's even likely that the stories the bible compiles about Jesus are stories that are older and about a different messiah or preacher, much like the OT lent stories from older sources, like the story about the flood or the story of Moses.

Crucifixion was hardly a rare kind of punishment in those days, the Romans really loved putting people onto crosses for some odd reason. It was a really gruesome kind of death and it did impress people to see people die like this (ya know, TV wasn't that big a thing back then, they didn't have much for entertainment...), it was a handy tool to convince people it's better to not question Roman authority. Did they crucify someone named Jesus? Almost certainly they did.

Another thing that was certainly not in short supply in those days were religious leaders, preaching and wandering, wandering and preaching. Whenever times were rough, and Roman occupation isn't really a picnic, there was never a shortage of people pointing to religion as the solution for everything. Was one of them crucified? Certainly. Was one of them named Jesus? Again, pretty much certainly.

How many televangelists do we have today by the name of Michael? How many of them are caught cheating on their wives? Was one of them named Michael? Who cares, it makes a good story and if I need a Michael, just conflate that guy with one of the cheaters. Nobody outside the televangelist circles will care, and if I am the only "official" one keeping record, what I record will be gospel.

Any Roman sources would probably not be in a good enough shape to actually pinpoint "the" Jesus. They would probably record that some self proclaimed messiah was crucified, whether they record the name of "some barbarian" is a different matter. And if they did, whether they gave a fuck that they recorded something as insignificant as this properly is yet another.

In the end, there were certainly a lot of Jesus', a lot of prophets and a lot of crucifixions, and if you really want to believe, you'll nearly certainly find a few intersections in these three groups.

New Toys

[Arzaboa]

When you have a never ending stream of new toys, the game is, "What's new."

When you have a couple of toys, the game is "Let's play with this and try not to break it."

--
Transformers, more than meets the eyes"

Re:Sounds obvious to me

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Studies about conventional wisdom are good because sometime conventional wisdom is wrong (e.g. geocentric universe models).