8 ms·

very interested in reading more about this. do you have any pointers/links?

AndrewDucker 7y ago
I'm afraid I don't have any handy links, but I've definitely read that kids with a few treasured toys play creatively with them, while children with a lot of toys move restlessly between them.
mumblemumble 7y ago
If you'd like a fairly short book, The High Price of Materialism by Tim Kasser isn't focused specifically on early childhood, but, if I recall correctly, it does touch on the subject. It's all correlational, of course, so it's not like this is a scientific certainty. But still, interesting to see.
- karatestomp 7y ago
  As an adult, I'd definitely say that at some point we passed from "plenty of options" to "so many options it's actually worse than having fewer", at least when it comes to entertainment and information consumption and such. Probably passed the tipping point some time between the 70s and very early 2000s at the latest. But I'm getting old enough that that might just be a preview of the "back in my day!" stories that are surely in my future.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - FooHentai 7y ago
    Sounds like the paradox of choice: https://medium.com/@FlorentGeerts/the-jam-experiment-how-choice-overloads-makes-consumers-buy-less-d610f8c37b9b https://medium.com/@FlorentGeerts/the-jam-experiment-how-cho... And yeah, agree. I'm looking at you, enormous steam games list.
    - karatestomp 7y ago
      Really, if all new recorded & digital entertainment stopped being created right now and I was stuck with only things already made, and even if I were born today, I'd easily have a lifetime's worth of material even if I were pretty picky, so the lack of new media, though a bit weird, wouldn't really harm my enjoyment of life that much. There are whole, giant genres of music I've barely listened to, hundreds of highly-regarded films from the last 140ish years I've not seen, more reputedly-excellent written works from the last ~3500 years than I've got time for even if that were my only entertainment. Shit, as far as games go I'm still trying to catch up on top-tier or just-under-top-tier games from the 90s I missed the first time around, and I played quite a few games back then. Now that I have less time, a bunch of excellent-looking games I'd probably love slip by and land on the "to do... someday, maybe" list. Even for a medium that new, I'm overwhelmed with great options.

I'm afraid I don't have any handy links, but I've definitely read that kids with a few treasured toys play creatively with them, while children with a lot of toys move restlessly between them.

mumblemumble 7y ago

If you'd like a fairly short book, The High Price of Materialism by Tim Kasser isn't focused specifically on early childhood, but, if I recall correctly, it does touch on the subject. It's all correlational, of course, so it's not like this is a scientific certainty. But still, interesting to see.

karatestomp 7y ago
As an adult, I'd definitely say that at some point we passed from "plenty of options" to "so many options it's actually worse than having fewer", at least when it comes to entertainment and information consumption and such. Probably passed the tipping point some time between the 70s and very early 2000s at the latest. But I'm getting old enough that that might just be a preview of the "back in my day!" stories that are surely in my future.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- FooHentai 7y ago
  Sounds like the paradox of choice: https://medium.com/@FlorentGeerts/the-jam-experiment-how-choice-overloads-makes-consumers-buy-less-d610f8c37b9b https://medium.com/@FlorentGeerts/the-jam-experiment-how-cho... And yeah, agree. I'm looking at you, enormous steam games list.
  - karatestomp 7y ago
    Really, if all new recorded & digital entertainment stopped being created right now and I was stuck with only things already made, and even if I were born today, I'd easily have a lifetime's worth of material even if I were pretty picky, so the lack of new media, though a bit weird, wouldn't really harm my enjoyment of life that much. There are whole, giant genres of music I've barely listened to, hundreds of highly-regarded films from the last 140ish years I've not seen, more reputedly-excellent written works from the last ~3500 years than I've got time for even if that were my only entertainment. Shit, as far as games go I'm still trying to catch up on top-tier or just-under-top-tier games from the 90s I missed the first time around, and I played quite a few games back then. Now that I have less time, a bunch of excellent-looking games I'd probably love slip by and land on the "to do... someday, maybe" list. Even for a medium that new, I'm overwhelmed with great options.