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In my mind, playing is a very important thing, although most of the Chinese parents usually think that playing wastes times and is never as neccessary as studying hard, because all my family members are so enlightened to consider playing is a good way to make children become more creative and imaginative. Sometimes, I just think about the reason of playing. What are we playing for? Just for fun? Undoubtedly not. As far as I concerned, when we play, we can explore new things or even achieve "windfall". We play, not for reasons or goals, but to enjoy the process of continuously meeting the surprise. Moreover, "playing" should not be defined narrowly. If you like, working can be a kind of playing, because you may get a sense of achievement; studing can be a kind of playing, because you may enrich your knowledge; reading can be a kind of playing, because you may widen your horizon; and, even sleeping can be a kind of playing, because you may have an amzing dream! Therefore, playing is everywhere in our lives, and that is why our lives colorful and cheerful.

Last year in my A.P. Government class, my teacher told me that on each quiz or test we would have a question on the news from that week. I decided to make BBC my computer's homepage, thinking it would force me to read the news. I soon realized how much I enjoyed reading the news, how much I valued knowing what was going on in the world. I used to spend an hour each day just reading the news: political, health, technology...basically anything but sports. I soon found how important it was to have a wide range of news to read: much better than only reading about one spectrucm. To know what is happening in the world, people need a well-rounded view, not a singular view. For this reason, I think people will continue to value non-customized news. They will prefer to be surprised about what is showing up on their computers, as opposed to knowing what they'll learn about today: the same thing they learned yesterday, and the day before. People appriciate variery. Newspapers give it to them.

According to Henig’s essay, many scholars tried to figure out what effect does play have on human or animals, but ended up with no clear answers. Play is somehow dangerous, and those abilities that we can get from play can also be gained from other alternative ways. Then I got confused. Why do we play, if play is so meaningless and so dangerous? My two year old sister likes playing. In her class, her teacher taught them by playing different games. She was apparently less distracted when playing games. I like playing too. One of the reasons I chose “play in the city” is because I saw a word “play” which is very attracted to. I think play just makes me happy and is a mental need. Just like Stuart Brown said, “Look at life without play, and it’s not much of life.” 

I’ve spent most of my life at a politically and socially liberal school, but until my senior year the politics of the majority of my peers never really factored into my personal life.  It was then that I both enrolled in a political theory class with a socialist teacher and increased my presence on the internet.  Surrounded by liberal people in a left-leaning discussion-based class, I found my opinions shifting ever more to adjust to my friends’ perspectives, and I didn’t have any explanation other than ‘they just made a lot of sense’.  Sunstein, however, explains the concept beautifully.  It’s not that people lose their own free will in favor of the will of the majority, and it’s not as if a person will suddenly abandon long-held beliefs, rather the homogeneity of the group incites agreement in individuals.  The Internet and a lot of social media sites are tangible examples of this process in action.  One person might advocate for increased marriage equality, and, as the original message spreads and others take it up, so often they act as if anyone who disagrees is wrong and unworthy of inclusion in the conversation.   All other opinions fade into the background as a single opinion becomes dominant and “create[s] echo chambers” which encourage even more radical thinking along the same vein.

(just to be clear, I’m not condemning the example I used [I support marriage equality], but it illustrates my personal experience with the concept in Sunstein’s article)

                As I read the article by Henig, I couldn’t help but think about how, through all of that research, we have yet to discover the real purpose of play. Yes, many benefits and disadvantages to play were listed and explained, but play is still referred to as pointless. In one part the question was brought up of why play has survived so long through natural selection if there is no apparent use for it. Having said this, I thought it was fascinating to read about all of the effects of childhood play. I never would have guessed that play has such a crucial role in the growth and development of the brain. The experiment where some rats were allowed to play freely and others were deprived of play was surprising to me because I would not have expected the actual brain functions of the deprived rats to be less developed. Overall, this article was full of interesting findings, even though combined they lead to no real conclusion regarding the purpose of play.

I think that Sunstein presents a very interesting issue in the disappearance of serendipity in favor of filtered control over what we read and hear. I, personally, enjoy the ability to wander and discover new things and opinions. I think, in terms of issues like amazon stores tracking browsing history to offer a more personal shopping approach, the filtration of information isn’t necessarily as bad as, say, filtering the news to only hear stories that agree on certain problems. One is trying to help you stumble upon another book or DVD you may like, while the other is trying to potentially warp your opinion. Growing up the daughter of a conservative journalist and liberal graphic designer, I have understood the values of listening to and understanding both sides of an argument from a very young age. By cutting people off from the opinions of others, especially in hot button issues like politics, people on both sides are deprived of the essential understanding of opposing viewpoints. I would much rather talk to people whose views differ from my own, especially on issues I don’t understand, in order to form an opinion, than blindly pick a side based on my existing bias. This, more than any other reason, is why I think the sacrifice of serendipity for careful management is tragic. 

Reading through "Taking Play Seriously" by Robin Marantz Henig, I thought about how the people my age play. The cell phone generation. I came across a quote a while ago from Jeremy Glass' blog post called "We Can't Get Lost Anymore," where he claims, "We can't jump off bridges anymore because our iPhones will get ruined. We can't take skinny dips in the ocean, because there's no service on the beach and adventures aren't real unless they're on Instagram. Technology has doomed the spontaneity of adventure and we're helping destroy it every time we google, check-in, and hashtag."

       Play, like nearly every other person, was a giant part of my childhood.  Playing simple games like “house”, “tag”, and “hide and seek” did not just help to keep me active and alert but it taught me social skills and how to interact with my peers.  “House”, where my friends and I imitated a stereotypical family scenario in a house, added to my knowledge of how a “proper” husband and wife, son and daughter, or uncle and aunt should behave.  

       Now that loss of play is becoming more and more common, parents are rightfully worried with how their children will learn to be sociable especially when they are spending a large chunk of their time online. A friend of mine obsessed over World of Warcraft, a popular online game, during his sophomore year of high school.  When recalling his high school experience he used to always say that it was almost as if there was a gap in it because he couldn’t remember any of that year.  In my opinion, online games are not only a waste of time but they also are not memorable or rewarding in any way. 

Something has been niggling at me ever since I started taking the newspaper electronically.

At my mother's request that I keep up-to-date with the state of national and international affairs, I set up an account with the New York Times and began having an email sent to me every day with the headlines. When I open one of these emails, I can see the titles of the headline articles, as well as a short, one-sentence description of the article. The Times sends me Top News, Editors' Picks, World, U.S., Politics, Business, Technology, Sports, Arts, N.Y./Region, Obituaries, Dining & Wine, Today's Video, Editorials, and Op-Ed. I click on the articles in Top News, World, U.S., and Politics that look interesting or important; skim Business, Videos, Dining & Wine, and N.Y./Region; and skip Sports and Obituaries entirely. My favorites, though, are Editorials and Op-Ed, where NY Times writers are allowed to dispense entirely with any attempt to sound neutral, and state their opinions boldly.