Marine is part of the 80s generation, the one that grew up without cell phones or social networks. So, to keep herself busy with her friends, she didn’t lack imagination. These creative and crazy games invented from scratch.
Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube and more recently TikTok… The younger generation has grown up with the emergence of social networks, often remaining glued to their cell phones, or addicted to their video game consoles.Seeing my nieces and nephews who had become teenagers scrolling their screens for hours, while a beautiful sun was coming out, I realized how differently we grew up. Because we enjoyed playing outdoors more, and to keep ourselves busy, we didn’t lack imagination. We had to be creative!” Marine, now 39, tells us. This is also why many psychologists today say that it is good for children to be bored. These “down times” encourage them to invent new games. This is exactly what Marine, Audrey and Eloïse did with their friends, when smartphones did not yet exist.
“We would meet at the phone booth, to go to the park near our house. We would each fill a backpack with all the accessories, board games and other gadgets that we found in our rooms, to unpack them later on the hill“, remembers Marine. After unpacking the treasures they brought back, the three friends spent hours having fun.”It was funny, because very often, one of us would bring back improbable games, like binoculars for example, which we used without any discretion to observe the athletes who were… less than a meter from us.”
And then there are also outdoor games: “We created vehicles by attaching a skipping rope to the back of our bikes. One of us pedaled, the other held the skipping rope while standing on a skateboard,” ” testifies Audrey. The three friends also enjoyed exchanging balls on a tennis court.But since we didn’t have the means to pay, we pretended that we had booked and that we were part of the club to “squat” the land” she confides.
Sandra and her friends were more attracted to music and dancing.”We could spend entire afternoons inventing choreographies. We took turns creating steps in eight beats, and at the end of the day, we were proud to see the result.” she remembers.
Even though they are well-known, other games have the merit of developing creativity, such as the words that must be completed at the end of a sentence: the person starts a sentence, the next person adds a word or a part of a sentence, until creating a rather crazy story. Of course, this does not mean that children of the younger generation are not creative, far from it. However, when mobile phones did not exist, teenagers did not have to worry about their image, or about appearing ridiculous. So, what games are you going to invent today?