Instead, we can consider what specific games have to offer our children and our family. They are the “digital super-foods” as Jocelyn puts it.ĭigital Nutrition is a brilliant antidote to the guilt, muddled advice and finger-pointing of screen time focus advice. These are the games that supplement your digital diet with variety, fibre, vitamins and minerals. Unlike the other lists on the site, it’s an eclectic collection of games. Essential to a healthy diet and easy to overlook if we just follow where video game advertising leads us. These are the vitamins of the gaming world. I’ve worked with her on this list of games that provide particularly underserved aspects of our digital play diet. Rather than digital detoxing and unplugging, Digital Nutrition is about intentional and intelligent use of devices and the conscious consumption of news, media and information.' 'Digital Nutrition is a guilt-free philosophy that guides you towards healthful technology habits and improving your digital literacy and wellbeing.

Instead, she encourages us to think about the variety, context and patterns of digital consumption. Jocelyn Brewer coined the phrase Digital Nutrition to introduce a way of thinking about technology that went beyond screen time worries, drug analogies and detoxes. These aren't all child friendly, but are fascinating examples of play transgressing intended rules. The Let's Game It Out YouTube channel is a great example of games you can play in ways (very) unexpected by the developers. But how children stretch and reinvent (or refuse to partake in) this usually frowned on behaviour opens unexpected possibilities. Misbehave in games like Untitled Goose Game, Donut County, Carrion, Fable, Scribblenauts and Beholder is expected. Purposeless Exploration in games like, Proteus and Ynglet can be used as a way to waste time, not progress and refuse direction. Undirected play can lead to unintended scenarios in games like Pok Pok Playroom, Kids, A Short Hike or Townscaper where play isn’t directed or capitalised upon, but left alone to be an end in its own right. Then there's games like and Please Touch The Artwork and Sloppy Forgeries that invite usually discouraged behaviour. Children often invent their own rules and ways to play not instigated by the developer.Ĭitizenship their own way in games like Alba, Cozy Grove or Unpacking where children have agency to influence and contribute (or not) to public spaces. Metaverse rule making and breaking in games like Roblox and Fortnite, where the context offers more than competition. These games can be places where children push back at the powers-that-be and take ownership of these digital public spheres in unexpected ways. We’re excited about games in this list as they are not only digital spaces where these things meet, but that children use them in ways they weren’t intended. “Games serve as the sites of complex negotiations of power between children, parents, developers, politicians, and other actors with a stake in determining what, how, and where children’s play unfolds.” It comes down to something at the heart of our database: seeing games more than mere sources of fun and diversion. Sara describes this as an embrace of the complexity of children’s online playgrounds, virtual worlds, and connected games. It’s about understanding digital play in a holistic sense so it can be all it needs to be in the life of a child. This is more than decrying big business muscling in on childhood. The politics of children’s play aren’t something we often talk about. Her book, Digital Playgrounds explores the key developments, trends, debates, and controversies that have shaped children’s commercial digital play spaces over the past two decades. We worked with Sara Grimes on this list of games that offer new and emergent ways to provide play possibilities to children. How do we empower children to play, break the rules and self-determination in light of other pressures and owners of these digital spaces? However, they are also contested spaces often created with profit as well as play in mind. Video games are a great way for children to play.

Townscaper mods