“What lessons do our children learn from toys? It could very well be that they are primarily learning to be avid consumers.”
These are the words of an anthropologist blogging at Psychology Today, who notes the difference in less wealthy cultures where toys are rare and kids often build their own playthings, learning valuable lessons along the way, and in richer cultures like the U.K. and the U.S., where children are overloaded with toys and often grow bored of them quickly. In the latter situation, the main lesson seems to be not the joy of play or power of creativity, but the concept that more is better.