Fidget means “agitating” and Spinner indicates a roller who turns. Its use has become a real mania in recent weeks, especially between children and adolescents.
But the phenomenon of “fidgeting“, That is the act of performing small involuntary movements especially with hands and feet when you are agitated, it does not arise with the fashion of the Fidget Spinner But it can be found already in movements such as clicking on the sphere of a pen or repeatedly moving one leg.
The same success had been achieved with the Fidget Cube. In 2016 two young entrepreneurs from Denver collected over 6 million dollars on Kickstarter for this small cube with buttons and switches, designed as an office anti-stress.
Many American news sites spoke of the Fidget Cube, making it very popular, and in general by attracting attention to toys to help concentration and reduce stress, up to an article released last December on Forbes, entitled “I Fidget Spinner These are the office games to have in 2017 “.
Together with their popularity, the worried reactions of many teachers and education experts also arrived according to which their diffusion in schools is dangerous, because it is a large source of distraction for students. Kate Ellison, Dean of the Washington Elemental School of Evanston, in Illinois, said to the Chicago Tribune: “Honestly we discovered that the Fidget have the opposite effect, compared to the publicized one. The boys exchange them with each other or make them turn instead of writing »and in some schools their use in class is prohibited.
In the face of this, there was a nice debate between experts and researchers on the idea that it is a possible help for those suffering from anxiety or ADHD.
But how was the Fidget Spinner? He was invented in 1993 by Catherine Hettinger, Florida, when he wanted to build an object that would help children maintain concentration and download stress. At that time Hettinger suffered from MiaStenia Gravis, a neuromuscular disease that made her weak, and tried a tool that would allow her to do something with her daughter.
He patented his invention in 1997, and tried to sell it to various toy companies and promote it to fairs, without success. He also went to a meeting with Hasbro, the third largest company in the sector, and told Time that before the interview he used his own invention to calm down. Hasbro decided not to produce the Fidget Spinnerafter having tested them on a sample of consumers.
In 2005 Hettinger’s patent expired, because he could not afford the 400 dollars needed to renew it, he explained to the Guardian: now anyone can freely build i Fidget Spinner: Including Hasbro, who in fact now sells them.
The concept behind the Fidget Spinner It is that for many people, and above all many children, it is difficult to focus only on visual or auditory stimuli, that is, those of a normal lesson at school: for this reason, handling an object that makes only one thing, making scribbles or drums with the leg can help maintain attention.
Elaine Taylor-Klaus, founder of an organization that helps children with attention disorders, explained to the CNN that “for some people with the attention/hyperactivity deficit there is a constant need for stimuli. What Fidget do, for someone – not for everyone – is to help them focus attention on what they want to focus on, because there is a kind of background movement that responds to that need “.
The most relevant study on the effect of fidgeting In children it is that of Julie Schweitzer, professor of psychiatry and behavior sciences at the Mind Institute at the University of California, published in 2015 on Child Neuropsychology. In his studies he explains how children suffering from ADHD have problems to maintain attention and move constantly or act impulsively. In some children with this problem, fidgeting seems to be patients their ability to maintain attention and have better performances.
The research was carried out on 44 children between 10 and 17 years of age, including 26 diagnosed with ADHD (experimental group) and the others with no disturbance diagnosis (control group). All the children have done an exercise of attention to the screen of a computer with a registration tool for their movement on the pelvis. Children simply knew they had to complete the exercise on the computer, they were not asked to move or stand still.
In the ADHD group more movement of the pelvis was recorded, the better the performance to the assigned task, while the amount of movement did not lead to any difference in the results of the control group. This study does not explain how the movement helps children with ADHD to focus on but the hypothesis is that the movement makes them more to the alert, when their attention begins to drift, the movement of one leg or foot seems to help them go back to the present.
In his research Julie Schweitzer investigated what the characteristics of the Fidget Spinner that induce a feeling of relaxation in those who use it. Most of the participants who responded to the questionnaire claimed that having an object in the hands helped to remain focused on a long task or to maintain attention when sitting for a long time during a meeting.
Among the most common examples, the use of easily available objects at any time such as penne, USB sticks, headphones or other personal objects that help to obtain a state of relaxation by increasing concentration.
Some psychologists referring to the phenomenon of “sensation seeking”, say that each person tries to change their experiences or the surrounding environment to have an optimal stimulation level. Each person works well in different conditions: some focus in a silent environment, others in a noisy and stimulating one.
External stimulation, however, varies not only among people but also for the same person depending on the activity he is carrying out. If for some it can be an annoying distraction, for others it can be very useful, at least in some circumstances (for example when it is not possible to get up and walk a little to calm down).
Obviously the studies are still too small to draw conclusions and a Fidget Spinner It cannot be a cure, it can help some children with specific sensory needs, but it can instead create more difficulties for others.
In fact, what should not be underestimated concerns the characteristics that the different objects must have to consider themselves effective in the regulation of attention, not all of them are in fact built in the same way. Therapists argue that primary stimulation must be tactile, which the Fidget Spinner integrates with visual coordination.
To use it, in fact, it is necessary to keep the center of the game with the thumb and index and use the other fingers to rotate it. The Vista-Tatto coordination is perhaps what pushes teachers to ban these games from the classes, because inevitably the students do not visually pay attention to the teacher unlike what happens with simple anti-stress balls or with the Fidget Cube.
Then perhaps Fidgets are not only a whim but could be aimed at a useful purpose. There is still study work to do, but they are not just a fashion or a whim. In fact, they embody a long -lasting phenomenon that almost all of us have had experience – just look at your behavior when working at a table or sits in meetings. The future perspective could be to create new generation intelligent objects that support the management of attention and calm.
