Till sometime back, you would have been reprimanded for being fidgety.Currently, a restless nature is trending and help is available at your fingertips. Or that’s how the marketers of fidget spinners would like us to believe.
It’s unlikely you haven’t heard of fidget spinners until now. It is has been reported as the biggest gadget trend of 2017 and we are just half way through the year.In fact, Amazon has listed it as one of the top-selling products under its ‘Toys & Games’ category.
For the uninitiated, a fidget spinner is essentially a toy/gadget that doesn’t require technology or batteries to run. It has three spokes along with an inline skate and ball bearings that make it a spin. Extremely popular across age groups –school children form a major chunk of users – it’s easy to use, cheap to buy and portable. Promoted as a fun way to beat stress and restlessness, fidget spinners have gained a steady fan following. There’s even a Fidget Spinner Association that is looking to host a championship in September.YouTube has enough videos gone viral that prove the gadget’s popularity.
Take a look at this:
Now here’s the not so good part about what seems like a harmless toy. Parents across the world and health experts are raising concerns about the safety of fidget spinners and its repercussions on mental health. New videos about children taking the spinners to school and cases of addiction of the gadget have surfaced. Some schools have even banned the toy.
In some cases, new versions of the spinner have caused injury. The spinners with lithium button batteries also have small parts which pose a choking hazard. The toys are now being called ‘dodgy’. So can fidget spinners help with attention and anxiety, as claimed by those who make them?
“The jury is still out on whether a fidget spinner is simply a toy or a gadget that can eliminate anxiety in children and adults, and even help those with ADD or ADHD focus,” Claudia Swartzberg, chief executive of Top Dog Education was quoted in a news report. “While many are claiming they aid mental focus, there’s no science that supports the notion they have therapeutic properties. However, even though there is no data to show that fidget spinners are beneficial rather than being fun, teachers, many parents, and learners claim they’re helping their mental focus in and outside the classroom,” Swartzberg was stated as saying. In an interview that appeared on www.healthline.com, Dr. John L. Bender, a member of the board of directors of the American Academy of Family Physicians says, “It would not be proper to claim that there was a level of evidence comparable to a full scientific study to base such a claim.”