Spinner — rattle for adults

Spinners, Rubik’s Cube, Slime Slimes, Walking Slinky Springs, Wooden Snakes — you probably held some of these little things in your hands. Or perhaps some of them are popular in your family or registered in your child’s pocket. What are they for us? And why do many, as soon as a new fashionable toy appears, immediately strive to become its owners?

Take your hands

At the stage of acquaintance with the outside world, the child sorts through small objects: he learns to evaluate their size, texture, and develops sensitivity. As we get older, we still perform actions from this series: we fiddle with a button or an earring, we fiddle with a pencil, we draw flowers in a notebook… The formed skill encourages us to pick up a small turntable.

“The spinner, in fact, is a children’s toy that is socially approved for use by adults,” notes Ivan Gribov, a psychologist, a specialist in the field of process and integrative-somatic approaches. — A cool rattle could perform similar functions, but it is not supposed to walk with a rattle. The spinner, as in childhood, gives us nervous unloading at the level of fine motor skills. This is a new version of the rosary, little things in the pocket and other things for fingering.

We have other similar habits. “Stroking a smartphone when we scroll the screen with our thumb is a repetition of the movement of the rosary,” said Andreas Altenhoff, associate professor at the Cologne Academy of Media Arts. His students came to the conclusion that the addiction to this manipulation is due to the fact that almost no one holds a rosary in their hands and fewer people … smoke!

After all, smoking for many is not so much a need for nicotine as a nervous need to fiddle with something. However, cigarettes are unhealthy, a smartphone is emotionally loaded, a Rubik’s cube or a Memmfert pyramid require intellectual effort … And a spinner is a simple thing: it provides pure satisfaction from tactile contact.

To focus

Forbes in 2017 recognized the spinner as the most relevant attribute of office workers. This does not seem surprising: anxiety, the flickering of information, competition leave us less and less opportunities for solitude, concentration, elementary concentration on the simplest problem. Gone are the life-saving knitting, embroidery, solitaire and chess in the evenings. Most of us do not include reflection in our daily routine.

“The rotation of the spinner is like meditation,” continues Ivan Gribov. — We are distracted from the internal conversation by an external object, and it does not burden us with its conversation, but simply fascinates, allows us to “stick, relax”.

In the film «Seventeen Moments of Spring» Stirlitz laid out houses from matches while he figured out how to avoid falling into a trap. Today, probably, he would spin a spinner!

Contemplating the movement, we relieve stress, calm our nerves, do not think about anything and even make up for the lack of visual impressions — spinners amaze with a variety of colors, their design and even backlighting.

“We live in a world of endless interruptions of the process, many times a minute, and here we feel the fusion,” explains Ivan Gribov. “The spinner always gives a sense of well-being, the success of the launched action: each touch immediately shows the result, reproduces pleasant microvibrations, gives an experience of the harmony of what is happening.”

Attract attention

Possession of a quite affordable toy automatically includes in us a competitive program familiar to modern culture: who has a cooler spinner (the price is from 100 rubles, but there are also status copies for 15 thousand rubles), who twirls them better. It’s the same thing that is always in sight. But why is it drawn to do it in public?

Try to imagine: a company is sitting, talking. Suddenly you take out a spring and start to transfer it habitually from palm to palm or turn the spinner. Yes, even a keychain with keys to throw from finger to finger. The conversation is not interrupted, but everyone is already looking at the trinket and, accordingly, at you. Your opinion becomes, as it were, weighty, they involuntarily listen to it.

This phenomenon in Stanislavsky’s system is called the «small circle of attention». When an actor creates a space at arm’s length, “in which it is easy not only to examine objects in all their finest details, but also to live with the most intimate feelings, thoughts and perform complex actions; can solve difficult problems; you can communicate with another person, feel him, verify your most intimate thoughts, restore the past in your memory, dream about the future.

In our case, the toy is a tool for creating such a circle. And you are practically a magician. How interesting this role is is up to you.

It is harmful?

Spinner today is a favorite among children’s toys, parents give it even to one-year-old babies. Among teenagers, this is a matter of special pride: there is something to show skill and dexterity. But at school, teachers require you to hand over the toy during class, otherwise the lesson will be disrupted. Parents start to sound the alarm.

“In terms of fine motor skills, the benefit from it is minimal. But the harm is zero, — child psychologist Alexander Kolmanovsky is convinced. — Of course, one can understand the concern of parents with excessive passion, like any kind of addiction, with a soft drug. But in this case, the addiction will disappear without a trace along with the fashion, as it was with the Tamagotchi.

Rospotrebnadzor is studying the impact of spinners on children’s health. So far, it recommends not to purchase spinners in unspecified places, from hands and pay attention to the material from which they are made, to the pungent smell and increased noise.