English Essay

1528666

Mr. Ames

AP/comp 4

12 Nov. 2015

        The line between play and recreation runs very thin from time to time. Play and recreation, all though similar, can mean two very different things. Lots of times people affiliate play with kids and recreation with adults, but this is not always the case.

        First we will start off with play, play is imaginative, non-serious, freely chosen, and actively engaging. While most people see play as the domain of children, adults also play, although often their play is more entwined with rules and regulations, which calls into question how playful their play really is. On the other hand, children’s play is typified by spontaneity, joyfulness, and inhibition and is done not as a means to an end but for its inherent pleasure. Play is often interpreted as frivolous; yet the player can be intently focused on their objective, particularly when play is structured and goal-oriented, as in a game.  As kids, playing was all that was on anyone’s mind at the time. As a child I would drop my bag off at home and take off to my friend’s house. These were the best times of my life, it was all I would look forward to all day.

        Games, games are one of the few tangible things play and recreation have in common. There are many types of games, there are board games, card games, video games, and even puzzles can fall under game. As I stated before, there is a fine line between these two words, but anyone would agree that these games would fall under play. There are other types of games that fall under recreation, we will return to those later.

Recreation, recreation is there is some consensus on the definition of recreation. Recreation is an activity that people engage in during their free time, that people enjoy, and that people recognize as having socially redeeming values. Unlike play, recreation has a connotation of being morally acceptable not just to the individual but also to society as a whole, and thus we program for those activities within that context. While recreation activities can take many forms, they must contribute to society in a way that society deems acceptable. This means that activities deemed socially acceptable for recreation can change over time.