More is less

Creativity owes to moments that bestow upon us space to recall, think and feel the pain or joy of vicissitudes of life. But in this age when we are afflicted with the curse of more — overfed, overprotected over-occupied — the untenanted mind has become an extinct species. More toys, more gadgets or more preoccupations have deprived us of the ability to stick to one tangible or intangible phenomenon. Abundance has usurped from us the Wordsworthian 'inward eye ... the bliss of solitude'.

In a well-known empirical study in 2018, Carly Dauch and colleagues of The University of Toledo, USA, tested the hypothesis that 'an environment with fewer toys will lead to higher quality of play for toddlers'. They found that toddlers provided with fewer toys engaged in longer durations of toy play and pl