Hatred of fidget spinners justified
Postmedia’s unscientific guide to why it’s OK to dislike the latest fad
The worldwide conquest of the fidget spinner appears complete. Eight of the top 20 toys on Amazon.ca are some version of a spinning toy. U.S. 7/11 locations have joined the cavalcade of non-toy retailers now stocking the gadget. And a Russian jeweller is selling luxury fidget spinners costing in excess of $20,000.
One of the reasons the fidget spinner has become a ubiquitous plaything is because its users think it’s good for them.
Office workers spin them relentlessly in meetings, citing them as concentration aids. Parents praise the devices as a magical salve for ADHD. And the rest of us simply have to attempt to coexist in offices and classrooms now whirling with eye-gouging discs.
You are not alone. Behold our guide to why you can feel good for hating fidget spinners.
For starters, there are absolutely no proven health benefits to the fidget spinner.
Go onto Amazon and you’ll find more than 35,000 fidget spinner offerings, with almost all of them claiming some medicinal quality.
“Effective for focus and deep thought,” claims one. “Great for fidgety hands, add & ADHD sufferers helps relieve stress,” claims the site’s top-selling model.
But there are no published studies on the clinical benefits of fidget spinners, and experts are dubious that they would find any.
“Using a spinner-like gadget is more likely to serve as a distraction than a benefit for individuals with ADHD,” Mark Rapport, a clinical psychologist at the University of Central Florida, told Live Science.
Rapport, notably, has researched the precise phenomenon of whether movement can help ADHD children to focus. While spinners just make the problem worse, in the past Rapport has advocated exercise bikes and yoga balls to calm restless learners.
David Anderson, a New York clinical psychologist who specializes in ADHD research, was more blunt when asked about fidget spinners by Time magazine.
“Mental illness is difficult to treat, and it’s not something for which there are simple solutions,” he said.
This isn’t to say that select children with learning disabilities won’t have a good experience with the toy, but there’s no reason to believe that the fidget spinner is inherently medicinal.
It’s basically no different than any other tactile fad from decades past: Stress balls, yo-yos, wristslappers and Rubik’s cubes.
And since we’re on the subject of dubious health claims, that aforementioned Russian maker of luxury fidget spinners says that its products will “influence testosterone.”
With armies of children now toting fidget spinners as apparent totems of focus and concentration, teachers are reporting that the toys are having the exact opposite effect in the classroom.
Pupils’ eyes are drawn towards the colourful spectacle of their fidget spinners and those of their colleagues. Exams now echo with constant buzzing. And, of course, fidget spinners are constantly spinning out of students’ grasp.
“When the ball bearings fall out in the midst of excessive, overzealous spinning and clatter all around my classroom floor mid-lesson, and they always do, it sounds like Plinko ... in hell,” one teacher wrote in an April blog post.
Probably the greatest crime of the fidget spinner, though, is that it’s a device designed to waste fidget energy. Many suppliers, in fact, tout the devices’ effectiveness at “killing time.”
Look into the backgrounds of countless famous figures and you’ll find a fidgeter.
Bob Dylan couldn’t sit in class without his leg restlessly pumping up and down. Renowned magicians from David Copperfield to Teller all report childhoods filled with constant card-shuffling and coin-palming.
Here in Canada, Rush’s Neil Peart grew up in St. Catharines, Ont., with a tapping problem.
“Rhythm especially seemed to affect me, in a physical way, and soon I was tapping all the time — on tables, knees, and with a pair of chopsticks on baby sister Nancy’s playpen,” he said in a 1994 interview.
Now ask yourself, Canada: Could you abide a world in which a young Neil Peart had been given a fidget spinner instead of a drum kit?