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BBC Sounds, music

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Welcome to our bonus

0:44

episode with more from

0:46

our expert who's

0:48

dedicated lots of

0:50

time to answering, why

0:53

do we do that?

0:55

I'm Al Ashamahi and

0:57

if you're after, more

0:59

play with Brenna Hassett,

1:01

you're in the right

1:03

place. Do check out

1:11

delve into the gender differences we

1:14

see in play across different cultures,

1:16

both in hunter-gatherer communities. and in

1:18

the West. But play isn't just

1:21

a human thing. And of course,

1:23

thinking about animals play is pretty

1:25

damn cute. But it also means

1:27

we can study the behavior outside

1:30

of ourselves. Dr Brenner has

1:32

a anthropologist and archaeologist at

1:34

the University of Central Lancashire

1:37

explains to me how scientific

1:39

thinking on animal play has

1:41

evolved over time. The

1:45

original sort of research was done quite some

1:47

time ago and people said, oh, I really

1:49

did see this animal doing something absolutely ridiculous.

1:51

You know, here's a squirrel messing with a

1:54

stone. And people just came along later and

1:56

said, well, that's not very scientific. I said,

1:58

your study sample is one squirrel. and he

2:00

was probably drunk on fermented pumpkins

2:02

that you left out on your

2:04

porch or something. So just leave

2:06

the squirrel alone. And then later

2:08

studies have come back and actually

2:10

really there's been a resurgence in, actually,

2:12

no, animals play. I mean, we

2:15

know that birds play, crows famously love

2:17

to play. They will happily sort

2:19

of toss things around. And it's

2:21

not just what we think of simple

2:23

play. So pouncing, pretend pouncing like

2:25

your cat would do, that's play. You

2:27

know, anyone with a kitten or a

2:30

puppy has experienced animal play. But

2:32

other animals do also do the

2:34

kind of social play, which we

2:36

used to think was just us.

2:38

But sadly, science is proving we

2:40

are really not the special cases

2:42

that we thought we were. And

2:44

social play is more interactive. Basically,

2:46

social play is just when you

2:48

involve someone else in your game.

2:50

So social play is where you've

2:53

had to go off and interact

2:55

with another individual. The thing we

2:57

play in our species is that

2:59

no species that has ever

3:01

existed has had a juvenile

3:03

period as long as us.

3:05

We are children much longer

3:07

than any other species. So

3:10

by extension that means that

3:12

we're playing presumably or we

3:14

have played more than any

3:16

other species. Why is that? What

3:18

is the purpose of that? Well,

3:20

this is... You're smirking a lot

3:23

and smiling. It's because this is

3:25

my home, this is something I've

3:27

been really interested in, research-wise, because

3:29

as humans, we do have an

3:31

extraordinarily long childhood, we have proportionately

3:33

longer childhood than any other species

3:35

really on the planet. We have,

3:38

let's say, about 25 years, where

3:40

we're really not quite fully adult,

3:42

possibly in the legal sense, but

3:44

even biologically, we're not really physically

3:46

finished growing. last bone in your

3:49

skeleton finishes ossifying around your early

3:51

30s. That's the little end of

3:53

your sternum there. It's not quite

3:55

done until your sort of early

3:58

30s. So we have this extraordinary.

4:00

childhood and another animal who has

4:02

a similar length childhood is something

4:04

like a bowhead whale. They are

4:06

much bigger than us. They are

4:08

very large animals, but they're taking

4:10

that long to grow. And they're

4:12

going to live, actually, for 200,

4:14

300 years. We're not going to

4:16

make it that far. So we've

4:18

actually taken childhood as proportion of

4:20

our lifespan and extended it massively.

4:22

And this is the kind of

4:24

really interesting evolutionary point, is what

4:26

are we doing? Why have we

4:28

done this? And the answer can really

4:30

only be that it's given us an

4:33

advantage. It's given us a chance. essentially

4:35

to play. And that play is helping

4:37

us learn to be a better

4:40

monkey. That is our time to

4:42

do all of this learning. It's

4:44

also the time when all of

4:46

our lovely play partners and our

4:48

adults and everyone else who's indulging

4:50

us in this play can invest

4:52

in us, can give us extra

4:54

resources, food, time, training. teach us

4:56

how to bash a rock into

4:58

a sharp cutting implement, teach us

5:00

how to speak, tell stories, learn

5:03

things about our environment. These are

5:05

all human things that seem to

5:07

take such a very long time

5:09

to learn, but they must be at

5:11

advantage because we are certainly the best

5:13

primate. We're not the best primate. We

5:16

are the most numerous and most successful

5:18

primate on the planet. Well, yeah, I

5:20

mean, if you think about this in

5:23

a very basic sense. Being

5:25

an adult in most other

5:27

species isn't quite as complex

5:29

as being a homo sapian

5:31

adult. We have a lot

5:33

more to learn. Our societies

5:36

are very, very social. There's

5:38

language. Actually, you're kind of

5:40

really building the case for

5:42

play. Play. Having a much more

5:44

interesting undercurrent than people might expect

5:47

and actually being much more important,

5:49

I think as much as we

5:51

romanticize play in children, there is

5:54

also an element of, the child

5:56

should be learning something, that child should

5:58

be doing this, that's... should be doing

6:00

that and I have to say being

6:02

out in America so much I see the

6:05

extreme of that where a lot of parents

6:07

kind of almost feel like they're being

6:09

judged if they don't hyper structure child's week

6:11

so you know Monday nights is ballet

6:13

Tuesday nights is this activity Friday

6:16

nights is football etc etc etc

6:18

etc are we actually shooting ourselves

6:20

in the foot by not just

6:23

giving children you know scheduled playtime

6:25

Well, I think the question to

6:27

throw back there is, are those

6:29

children going to have to follow

6:32

a rigorous schedule as adults? Those

6:34

children who are being shuttled between

6:36

mandarin, ballet, viola, whatever it is,

6:39

may in fact be being trained

6:41

for a society that values the

6:43

kind of showing on time to

6:46

appointments having done the homework. These

6:48

are all skills that, while we may

6:50

not... enjoy them in the present.

6:52

You know, they may be actually

6:54

what's needed to train for the

6:57

particular adult social role that their

6:59

adults are trying to get them

7:02

into. There's a really interesting difference

7:04

between both the foragers and farmers

7:06

in the way they're taught. So

7:09

forager children among the bothie tend

7:11

to pick things up by watching

7:13

or participating. There's almost

7:15

never a formal instruction, what we would

7:17

consider teaching. And this is a really

7:20

big sort of theory of education, theory

7:22

of play, sort of battle, about whether

7:24

or not formal instruction, where it comes

7:27

into our lives, when it arrives, and

7:29

what it means for how we interact.

7:31

But the farmers, they often tell their

7:33

children. what they need to be doing.

7:36

So they also do, you know,

7:38

sitting and watching to learn something

7:40

and participating to learn something. But

7:42

they're often given formal instruction as

7:44

well. And this is just a

7:46

different way of conveying information, but

7:48

it should be pointed out that not

7:50

all societies have what's called a didactic,

7:52

you know, sort of, there's an instructor

7:55

who knows things who will formally

7:57

convey information to you. That's not

7:59

a... universal. And so when we

8:01

look at how our children learn, we

8:03

beat ourselves up over every aspect of

8:06

parenting, and I don't think anyone should,

8:08

because all we're doing is trying to

8:10

use sort of methods that, whether we

8:12

know it or not, are aimed at

8:14

making the adults in our society. They're

8:17

aimed at reproducing our own culture. If

8:19

you want to stop scheduling between Mandarin

8:21

and Viola, you're going to have to

8:23

look at your own culture first. Oh,

8:25

so that's a complex answer. I was

8:28

expecting you to kind of give me a

8:30

yes, they should, no, they shouldn't. And you're

8:32

like, well, actually, well, okay, let

8:34

me question you on another thing

8:36

about our modern existence, which

8:38

is technology. Tech is clearly changing

8:41

the way kids play. What do you

8:43

think the impact of that is?

8:45

So I think it's really interesting

8:47

that technology is always sort of,

8:50

it's always a slight moral panic.

8:52

And I once went to a

8:54

lovely talk, which was a beautifully

8:56

illustrated presentation where the speaker just

8:58

presented headlines from the 1880s, from

9:01

the 1910s, radio waves will melt

9:03

your children's brain. Please limit radio

9:05

time to under an hour a

9:07

day or your children will be

9:10

morons, which was a term common

9:12

at the time. television. If you

9:14

allow your child to watch television, they

9:16

will be. Video games in the

9:18

90s, I'm the generation that was absolutely

9:21

going to, society was going to be

9:23

destroyed by violent video games. And now,

9:25

all of my students play Minecraft. It's

9:28

a really interesting thing where we

9:30

sort of, I think we're quite apprehensive about

9:32

a lot of technology. If we

9:34

think about, you know, adults training

9:36

their children to be the adults

9:38

that they were, if technology changes.

9:40

We can't necessarily teach our children

9:42

to play in the way we

9:44

played. And that's a source of

9:46

anxiety. My children are never going

9:48

to know what the AOL dial-up

9:51

sound sounded like. That's probably a

9:53

good thing. But you know, they've

9:55

got apps, they've got games, and

9:57

you just have to realize that

9:59

humans... adapt Hey,

12:06

it's Amy Brown from the Bobby

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Bones show. Join me and

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12:41

So you're a mom, and I feel

12:43

like I might already know the answer

12:45

based on some of this, but you

12:47

do have children and you study play

12:50

academically, intellectually. Does that mean that you

12:52

overthink? You're almost studying your children. So

12:54

the unfortunate history to my last book,

12:57

which was sort of a look at

12:59

the evolution of pregnancy and child rearing

13:01

and all of this, is that I

13:04

really wanted the hard data. I wanted

13:06

the anthropological facts. I wanted to research

13:08

this. I was going to be amazing.

13:11

at this whole sort of, you know,

13:13

child-rearing thing. I was going to find

13:15

out, you know, what is the actual

13:18

truth in terms of like universal practice.

13:20

And I came away realizing, A, I

13:22

was far too busy for that. And

13:25

B, that there just, there really is

13:27

no universal. We're all in kind of

13:29

individual, yeah, social, cultural places. I'm not

13:32

sure that any of it really makes

13:34

me a better mother, though I will

13:36

say that my four-year old is super

13:39

good at opening Excel. Which I feel

13:41

like, you know, she's definitely learned to

13:43

exist in the society she's going to

13:46

go into. We're trying to keep them

13:48

away from archaeology just for sanity's sake.

13:50

Well, okay. Speaking of archaeology, let me

13:52

ask you. Young Brenner, your memories of

13:55

your own play as a child. Did

13:57

they ever involve digging in the dirt

13:59

like can you see the clear trajectory

14:02

to who you've become? You know, that's

14:04

that's a worrying question because I was

14:06

just thinking of I sort of as

14:09

a small child Tragically when you have

14:11

small pets, you know, they do expire

14:13

on a fairly regular basis sort of

14:16

goldfish and that and I did spend

14:18

a lot of time building them zigger

14:20

arts. Oh God, where's this going? No

14:25

animals were harmed in the making

14:27

of my professional career What I

14:29

became a forensic archaeologist I needed

14:31

to kill them and take them

14:34

apart No, no, just I just

14:36

built them very large monumental architecture

14:38

in order to sort of and

14:40

and then you know spent spent

14:42

the next number of decades going

14:44

off and trying to find cool

14:46

things to dig up, you know,

14:48

digging up skeletons in the ancient

14:51

Near East. So, you know, I'm

14:53

not sure you could have seen

14:55

it coming, but perhaps the signs

14:57

were there. Play is this training

14:59

ground where we forge our adult

15:01

selves, where we learn and develop

15:03

vital skills required to survive and

15:06

thrive in our environments. It's a

15:08

necessity. As Brenner puts it, being

15:10

a better monkey. But the absolute

15:12

beauty is as a kid, you're

15:14

not aware of any of that.

15:16

It isn't even a thought in

15:18

your mind, because you are simply

15:21

having fun. How absolutely adorable. Thank

15:23

you for joining me for more

15:25

play with Brenner Hassett. The producer

15:27

was Olivia Johnny, with additional production

15:29

from Emily Bird. The series producer

15:31

is Geraldine Fitzgerald. The executive producer

15:33

is Alexandra Fetchum. The commissioning editor

15:35

is Rian Roberts. And to keep

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up to date with all the

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other episodes in the series, subscribe

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from BBC Radio

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16:25

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and help cure. more.