What will they think of next?
That was my first thought when I saw the latest craze taking elementary schools by storm. By now you’ve likely observed or read about the propellerlike hand-held toys that kids — and adults — of all ages are fascinated with of late: fidget spinners.
Devised as tools to occupy kids, enhance their focus and reduce anxiety, the multi-pronged spinners have quickly exploded in popularity beyond just the children who may most arguably benefit from their use. They’re quite captivating too. Just hold the center of the spinner between your thumb and a finger, set the spinner in motion by flicking one of the rounded blades with your other hand and watch the spinners go for minutes on end — the better the quality of the device, the longer it goes.
A couple of months into their stay atop the pop culture mountain, spinners have become the latest toy du jour collected and traded, bought and sold by the wider student body in schools across the country.
Not quite as popular but of a similar ilk are the hand-held fidget cubes, which offer various sensory activities on each of the cube’s six sides, allowing kids — and, again, adults — to similarly stay occupied by the stimulation that each side provides.
Of course, as is the case with many a school-aged trend, the spinners and cubes can get to be a problem in some classrooms. Occasionally their use rises to the level of distraction, requiring them to be put away, taken away or otherwise removed from becoming an inhibitor to learning.
I empathize with teachers on this one. Just this week, while instructing my younger son’s baseball team on the topic of focus — I’m not making this up — one of our other coaches observed that a player was actually playing with a fidget spinner during our talk and other kids were watching. Whether the boy needed the spinner or had just pulled it out purely as a plaything, he was kindly asked to put it away and we got on with our talk. Clearly, the irony was not lost on us as coaches.
How long will the spinner craze endure? To that, I say, let’s take a look at the calendar. By this point, the spinner and cube fads almost certainly have more school days behind them than ahead.
Schools will dismiss for the summer on May 25 in District 203 and June 2 in District 204. By the time classes reconvene in August, I predict the fidget phenomenon will have gone the way of the Rainbow Loom. It may still be popular with some, perhaps even hugely so with its most ardent devotees, but not the “everyone-has-one” kind of craze it was at its apex.
Think back to similar toy trends when you were in school. For me and my friends, it was the Rubik’s Cube and all the offshoot puzzlelike playthings that we had back in the early 1980s. And then what happened? One day we had Rubik’s Cubes, Rubik’s Revenge, Rubik’s Snakes and Rubik’s everything. The next day, Rubik Who?
Which is not to say that fidget things will go away entirely. Likely, quite the contrary. Their popularity could live on in the sense that Rubik’s Cubes have always been around over the course of the last 35 years, if no longer ubiquitously. But nothing that reaches the heights that Fidget Spinners have over the last few months can ever possibly maintain that momentum long-term.
Where are your Furies and Beanie Babies now? Or even more recently, your Hatchimals?
The spinners you bought at the grocery store or convenience store or online, that your kids traded for or otherwise acquired from their friends will no doubt soon be relegated to the bottom of a drawer somewhere, left to be found one day amid a sea of old friendship bracelets.
Just a couple of months ago, we were all busily helping Borax modernize its brand by mixing multicolored batches of slime at home — and creating a run on glue in the process. Until we heard the horror stories of the potential health risks posed by slime. Then we all quickly threw that slime away and moved on to something else. Here, kid, play with this spinner.
Don’t get me wrong. I’ve toyed with the idea of taking a spinner or a cube to work myself, where I’ve seen more than a few colleagues with them at their desks in recent weeks. A photographer I was working with on a recent shoot said she loves them, and then she promptly pulled out her keychain with a — wait for it — fidget cube attached.
I had a stress ball at my desk for a while, until it recently started leaking due to overuse and had to be thrown away. I get it. But there’s something different about these spinners — and I can’t quite put my finger on it.
Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Rob Manker is a freelance writer who lives and parents in Naperville.
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