Kelly Clancy

It's something undertaken out of your own volition.

It's something you want to do, you enjoy doing.

And I think part of what makes it fun is that it's a kind of form of learning.

It's like what your brain wants to do.

Your brain really wants to explore things and learn things.

And through games, we're kind of exploring new situations in a very safe environment.

So like when kittens are playing, they're often kind of practicing things they'll need as adults.

So they're like wrestling or, you know, practicing hunting by like whatever, wrestling around with yarn.

So it's kind of like a safe environment to practice things.

One of the kind of more compelling things

theories about what play is about is that it's about social learning.

So it turns out rats have kind of like a laughter.

They have this like vocalization that they make when they want to play.

And so one rat makes this vocalization and then the other rats all stop what they're doing and they all play together.

If a rat is born and it can't hear, if it's a deaf rat, it doesn't hear that laughter as much.

So it ends up not playing as much growing up.

And those rats, as adults, they are socially awkward.

They are aggressive.

They can't read their peers' social cues.

They can't really mate.