As adults have we forgotten how to play?

I haven’t, I usually try to get others to play w/me. many won’t. oh well

I have nieces and nephews. Not playing is not an option. :D

Not in America. So much advertising is geared towards us “playing” and making money from us “playing”. Play is great, my life would be lacking if I didn’t get in an occasional scurry up a tree or whatnot.

Well, I have to take a somewhat contrarian view here and say adults in this day and age play more than adults have ever played. I will concede that the “play” is not necessarily “imaginative”...no, adults don’t play make believe per se the way that children do, but most adults do still daydream, which is what make believe becomes when we get older. The thing about our culture is that the things we as adults, or even our children “play” with involve today’s technologies. You can’t tell me that listening to your iPod, watching a DVD on your big flat screen HDTV, playing with your Wii are not “play”. It may not be as creative as the DIY days of yore, but it’s definitely play, and adults these days spend FAR more of their time playing than did adults a generation or two ago.

I’ll compare myself, my friends, my cousins, and other people my age to all of our parents. We have all sorts of electronic gadgets and games. I for example went over to someone’s house recently, we had a few drinks and played Rock Band. When I was a kid, my parents might go over to someone’s house, have a few drinks and play cards. A couple generations before that, you might have been apt to find people who worked 7 days a week, 12 hours a day, who never once stopped to play cards. Modern technology has led to many conveniences which have on one hand made our lives very hectic, but on another left us with a fair amount of liesure time. Yesterday the complaint was that you didn’t have enough money to buy the fun things, today the fun things are cheap and abundant, but we don’t have enough time to enjoy them all.

Some may have forgotten, but certainly not all of us. Besides playing with words, which I do all the time, I love to play with whatever comes to hand. Many things not billed as toys can be played with, as little kids understand very well: cardboard boxes, coins, string, silverware, noses. Sometimes it’s as simple as folding a piece of paper in a funny way. Sometimes it’s something that can be tossed and caught, or arranged in little structures, or caused to jump and pop. I am often seen playing with the things left behind by the previous group in a conference room. Even an ordinary rubber band has possibilities.

You can have a lot of fun with a simple game that uses only five marbles or coins or other small objects. Most toys manufactured and marketed as toys are really boring, the worst of all being the ones that essentially play with themselves while the child is nothing but a spectator. Give me wooden blocks, marbles, a ball, a cardboard tube, some buttons or pebbles—we’ll have fun.

Some adults don’t seem to ever know what true playing is. It’s sad to see, in my opinion.
I have a toddler, I’ve been a nanny. I enjoy playing, any sort of game, making up my own games…make believe, under the fort my son and I make from our comforter.
There’s more to life than being serious all the time.

I still know how to play. I play “guys” with my son, I play cards and yahtzee with my daughter. It’s fun. Sometimes I’ll just act silly to make them laugh. It makes me feel good to play with the kids and they enjoy it, so we all win. :)

One of my businesses is play. One of my tasks is buying vintage toys at auction and reselling them. I love to find a 100 year old toy or 50 year old toy and imagine what little boy or girl held it. I love researching old catalogues, cleaning and polishing an old tin wind up. I smile and remember the innocence and wonder of when I was a little boy and the world was fresh.
I love to bring that same smile to someone else’s face when they purchase one of them as well.

I play all the time. Probably more than a man this close to fifty should. I am just that sort of guy, playful. I tease and joke with people, I smile and crack jokes, I enjoy having fun and making people laugh and then I have my bugs, which I play with, too. I’m just a big kid that realizes growing old is inevitable, but growing up isn’t.

Too often play for adults has some sort of a sexual connotation, i.e. playing with yourself, which is fine if that trips your trigger, but good old-fashioned fun and play is what keeps me young. Tag, you’re it!

@Jeruba: “Many things not billed as toys can be played with, as little kids understand very well: cardboard boxes, coins, string, silverware, noses.”

You forgot my favorites: bubble wrap and toes.

@MacBean, I did! Thank you. Bubble wrap. Can you imagine what things were like at the plant the day after the first bale of bubble wrap rolled off the press? If you really want to have fun with it, lay out a carpet of the large-bubble sheets and stomp ‘em.

And toes. You want to say to a 4-month-old, “Go to it, honey. Nothing’s going to be this much fun again until you come of age.”

@Jeruba—I like to lie down and roll on the really big bubble sheets. :D

I play in much the same way I did when I was a child in that all I need is a piece of paper and some colors to invent a whole new world and to be busy for hours.

I also work in the church nursery for the under twos and so I get to play for several hours every Sunday. I like making bubbles and building tall, tall towers best.

However, at my weight I find it hard to play jump rope, hide and seek, or hop scotch, although I have been known to try.

That’s why I do improv and karate. To me, both are play. And tomorrow, I have to replace my Crayolas. I’m gonna go for the 128-colour box! :D

work hard to play hard. Why go to work all the time and be all business if you never have time to play. I work,work,work and then will take a few days to go to something super fun. I usually force it on my little brother when he comes to vist. parasailing, skydiving, camping and hiking trips. I worked two years with no vacation so i could save up enough money to do the major music festival tour for a year.

@Jeruba:

”something that can be tossed and caught, or…. caused to jump and pop. I am often seen playing with the things left behind”.....

AHAH~ You pretend to be Cate Blanchett pretending to be Queen Elizabeth the First, but the truth is out, you are a kitty cat.

@aprilsimnel, one of the joys of life.

@susanc, you’ve found me out.

You’ve forgotten how to play when you have to think about it.

My grand babies have helped me get back into playing too!

I’m with @dalepetrie. Adults play all the time. We just don’t recognize it because it’s not childish or silly (except sometimes). Our image of play is what children do. However, what play is, so I’ve heard, is practice. Our kids are practicing to be adults.

We’re adults (in the sense of being that age), and we’re still practicing. In fact, looked at one way, everything we do is practice to do it better. But hobbies are play. Conversation is play. Work is play (though more for some than others). Play is anything you would do even if you weren’t paid for it.

Fluther is play. Websurfing is play. Anything we do where the benefits outweigh the costs is play. It is all creative, too, because we don’t have to do it. Play is any voluntary activity that makes us feel good. Play does not mean playing like kids. It is playing like adults.