More than a game: How play helps wire our social brains

""For many years the conviction has grown upon me, that civilization arises and unfolds in and as play," he wrote. Huizinga saw play permeating language, myth, and ritual, all of which he considered root forces guiding human societies. He also developed one of the first important and lasting definitions of play. He pointed out that play is fun, it is voluntary, it's a freedom. "We might call it a free activity standing quite consciously outside 'ordinary' life as being 'not serious,' but at the same time absorbing the player intensely and utterly," he wrote."

"Anthropologists who followed Huizinga embraced his ideas. They recognized play as universal: There is no culture in the world that doesn't play. They recognized it as therapeutic: For more than a hundred years, therapists have made use of play to heal and work through trauma. And they recognized that play was likely rooted in the evolutionary neurobiology of humans."

Play functions as a central organizing force in human culture, permeating language, myth, and ritual. Play is enjoyable, voluntary, and experienced as a freedom that stands outside ordinary life while intensely absorbing participants. Play occurs in every culture and serves therapeutic purposes, with therapists using play to heal and work through trauma for more than a century. Play likely has roots in evolutionary neurobiology and actively shapes the brain. Mid-twentieth-century neuroscience experiments with rats showed that enriched, play-filled environments alter neural development and brain structure, linking play to biological changes.

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