Unlike what happened years ago, today's toys compete with consoles, tablets and smartphones when it comes to entertaining our children. And apparently, in that search for attention in a digital age, some toys that have been with us for decades have become more aggressive.
This is the case of lego toys, which according to a study conducted by a team from the University of Canterbury, they are increasingly violent. The researchers say that there are more and more weapons in Danish brand products and that they are increasingly inspired by war issues, causing children to play more violently.
More and more weapons in the Lego
"The products of the Lego company are no longer as innocent as they used to be (...) The violence of Lego products seems to have gone beyond the improvement of the gameplay", says the study's principal investigator, Christoph Bartneck.
To affirm, they studied two variables. On the one hand, how often children find weapons in the boxes of Lego, and on the other, the perceived violence in catalogs of Lego products between 1978 and 2014.
Below we can see a chart with the proportion of Lego toys that include weapons (swords, guns, cannons, etc.), either as loose pieces or within a set. The chances of a Lego set containing weapons increased exponentially every year until reach almost 30% in 2014.
As for the Lego product catalogs that the company produced once or twice a year since 1950, they were considered a great tool to analyze the concept of violence in the context of the game scenarios.
More violent games, more violent children?
Does this influence in any way the development of our children's personality? Can the design of toys somehow encourage violent behavior in children?
According to a study on the effects of weapons as a toy on children's behavior, it was found that toy weapons were correlated with a higher rate of antisocial behavior in children compared to non-violent toys.
However, on the other hand, research ensures that playful aggression is very beneficial for the child's development. That is, a child play with weapons does not imply that he will become an aggressive child. The main factor is to distinguish a serious aggressive behavior from a playful aggressive behavior. Toys are instruments of play and what will make the child aggressive or not in the supervision of the game and in the education we give at home.
Along the same lines, José Antonio Pastor, president of the Spanish Association of Toy Manufacturers declared to El Mundo at the beginning of the year that "no violent toys and pacifist toys, how violent or pacifist are the behaviors ".
According to the researchers of the study, it is not an exclusive issue of Lego, but it is a widespread trend of the children's entertainment market.
In response to the results of the study, Lego spokesman Troy Taylor explained that "Like other types of games, conflict is a natural part of child development (...) We always try and use humor when possible to lower the level of conflict". He adds that Lego products include all kinds of activities such as construction, fantasy ... and also conflict.
