On the border between play and creativity: an ethnographic study of children’s interactions with digital technology

The aim of the study was to investigate children’s interaction with digital technology in an afterschool context from the perspectives of play theory and creativity theory. Research conducted within the last decades has demonstrated that creativity can be conceptualized as a distributed, rather than an individual, phenomenon (Boysen, 2017; Clapp, 2017). This change of perspective is partly caused by digital technology because such technology allows people to engage in creative processes in ways that are less dependent on individual skills and intentions (Literat & Glaveanu, 2018). According to widespread definitions of creativity, individual intentions regarding the creative product are given a predominant role (Weisberg, 2006). In this view, children’s actions in a distributed creative process might be more appropriately understood as play, in the sense that the children’s actions seem less oriented towards the product (Skovbjerg & Bekker, 2018). The study was based on ethnographic methodology (Emerson et al., 2011) and included 100 hours of observation in 10 afterschool clubs and 20 group interviews with children (aged 6-13). The data was analyzed through situated analysis (Clarke, 2003). A consent form and information sheet were provided to children, parents and pedagogues in the 10 participating institutions. The findings demonstrate that children’s interaction with technology can be interpreted as more or less valuable from a pedagogical perspective, depending on the applied theoretical lenses. These findings suggest that pedagogues must consider carefully how they interpret the children’s interactions with technology and how these interpretations affect their approaches to the children’s actions.