Will tech take over from toys at Christmas? I hope not

On the way up the stairs you went past a window where a Ferris wheel built from Meccano slowly revolved. I loved going there, and would save my pocket money for dolls house furniture, jigsaws, games, and, later, anything and everything Barbie.

My Barbies were all over the house. My pride and joy was my Barbie suitcase which opened out to a room with wardrobes for her clothes.

My younger brother would buy Matchbox military vehicles and small plastic soldiers from the shop, moving on to Scalextric and Matchbox Superfast cars. His Superfast track ran from one end of the living room to the other. We would release cars from the windowsill and watch them speed towards a loop beside the sofa.

There was not a day when our house was not littered with toys of one sort or another. Christmas was like a wonderland, when my siblings and I spread our toys across the carpet and spent the holiday playing with them.

I don’t have any young children in my life at present, but from what I have heard, today presents a very different picture. Toys are being bypassed in favour of tech. Many users of the internet forum Mumsnet report that children often prefer technology such as games and apps on tablets and computers to toys.

Last week the UK Children’s Laureate Frank Cottrell-Boyce warned that technology could spell the end of kids playing with toys. He said that he was increasingly hearing that children no longer played with toys.

The author previously warned that the government must give children access to more books to address ‘a recession in children’s happiness’ due to a lack of reading. Reflecting on the theme of the new Toy Story 5 film, in which the toys’ world is being upended by technology, as they compete with electronic gadgets, he said “more and more I am hearing the phrase ‘children don’t play with toys any more – they have ditched their toys for screens.’”

Without toys there wouldn’t be much to tidy up. Picture: Pixabay

How sad. If this really is happening, living rooms at Christmas won’t be the fun-filled places I remember. They won’t be places where adults have to tread carefully – especially in socks or bare feet – and phrases like “Can you move that fire engine!” or “Watch it I almost tripped over that doll!” ring out.

Instead, more and more kids will be slumped on sofas or up in their bedrooms, heads down, staring at animated scenes.

On the plus side there won’t be much to tidy up or toy boxes to fill at the end of the day.

But surely all is not lost. Earlier this year a Smyths Toys Superstore opened at the shopping centre near where I live. Whenever I walk past it seems to be reasonably busy. There’s also a Toys R Us, albeit stuck to a small section of TG Jones, formerly WH Smith.

There’s nothing like a toy to fire a child’s imagination. It’s so exciting for children to stand in front of a Christmas tree and look at the differently-shaped parcels beneath, rattling them, trying to guess what toys are inside. I always knew the shape of a Barbie box. Computer games, I imagine, all come in square plastic containers – it’s not quite the same, is it?

If anyone had told the eight-year-old me, or any of my friends, that toys would, in our lifetime, go out of fashion, we wouldn’t have believed it.

Despite predictions, I don’t think children will lose interest in toys. The tide will turn. It always does.