It’s toys, not tablets, that shine at teaching vital skills to children, study reveals

Empathy, tolerance, and the ability to see the world from other people’s perspectives are crucial skills — and they begin to develop early in life. New research suggests that playing with dolls rather than tablets may be more effective in enhancing these abilities.

Researchers from Cardiff University in the United Kingdom found Children aged 4 to 8 years who played with dolls showed better improvement than those who played open-ended games on digital tablets in developing what is called “understanding false beliefs.” The study was a randomized trial and was conducted over six weeks.

Understanding false belief is our ability to do so Realizing that others can hold false beliefs Or be wrong about the world. Developing this cognitive skill helps us to appreciate that others can have different beliefs and opinions – about politics and religion, among many things – and to be able to tolerate and empathize with that.

Children who develop this cognitive ability can do better Navigating increasingly complex social situations And dealing with conflicts. Psychologists believe that children begin to develop this ability primarily between the ages of 4 and 8, and some studies have shown that development can begin even before the age of 2.

The classic example of understanding a false belief is Sally Ann’s missionconducted by researchers in London in 1983. The children were shown two dolls – Sally, who had a basket, and Anne, who had a box. Then Sally the doll puts a marble in her basket and leaves the room. Anne takes the marble from the basket and hides it in her trunk. Then Sally returns to the room.

Children were asked three questions in the study, the main question being “Where will Sally look for her marble?” If the children answer “basket,” they will understand that Sally’s view of the world—that the marble is still in her basket—does not reflect reality.

Experience

In the six-week experiment, children ages 4 to 8 played with either dolls or digital tablets loaded with open-ended creative games. There were 81 children, average age 6, from South Wales. Children were randomly assigned to play with dolls or tablets. They couldn’t choose for themselves. The parents kept diaries of play sessions that lasted for hours.

After the trial period, the researchers found that children who played with the dolls had stronger improvements in understanding false beliefs and the ability to separate their knowledge from what others believed to be true. To measure this improvement, the researchers used the Sandbox Task, a psychological tool created in 2011. It is similar to the Sally Anne Task but involves moving and burying an item in a Sandbox.

The researchers also saw that children in the doll group often included friends, siblings, and parents in their play. Children in the tablet group often played alone. Children who played with dolls often gave them personalities, talking about what they thought the dolls wanted, believed, or felt.

The researchers concluded that playing with dolls may help children practice and improve social processing skills.

“The mechanism behind this improvement requires further investigation, but we speculate that the dolls may encourage social interaction and continue to practice these skills outside of social interactions,” according to the study.

The use of tablets is widespread among children

Busy parents may tend to use tablets to keep their children occupied. Pew Research Center found 63% of children aged 2-4 years interact with tablets, and this number increases with age – 81% in children aged 5-7 years and 80% in children aged 8-10 years. The research also showed that the majority of children use smartphones at young ages – 59% in ages 2-4, 58% in ages 5-7, and 64% in ages 8-10.

A majority of parents — nearly 60% — said they were “doing their best,” while just over 40% said they “could do a better job” of managing their children’s screen time, according to the study.

Are tablets bad?

So is it time to ditch the tablets and order some toys? Sarah Gerson, study co-author and developmental psychologist at Cardiff University, said the study is not a condemnation of children who use tablets or other devices.

“My general advice is to let kids embrace the types of play they find most natural,” Gerson told CNET. “Although tablet games were the ‘control’/comparison group in this study, we are careful to say that this does not mean anything negative regarding technology. Instead, different types of games and play can be beneficial for different types of learning/development.”

Although Gerson and her team used dolls in the experiment, children may also improve their understanding of false beliefs by playing with other inanimate objects.

“Human-like dolls are an easy access point because children are naturally drawn to using them to practice social interactions,” Gerson said. “There’s probably going to be a lot of variation as kids expand these types of social interactions to include stuffed animals, dinosaurs, superheroes, etc. What I think is interesting about dolls is that they don’t necessarily have a set role or script — unlike superheroes, for example — so they allow kids to play the way they want in open-ended ways.”