Have you ever considered what is the opposite of play, or whether it even has an opposite? This question hadn’t crossed my mind until I stumbled upon the work of Dr Stuart Brown. In his TED talk, ‘Play is more than just fun’, Brown, a psychiatrist and lifelong researcher on play, mentions in passing: the opposite of play is depression.
Given the surging rates of depression among adolescents, this idea intrigued me. I wanted to know more.