Blueberry Crumble Addiction...and Toys

I was talking with my friend Richie yesterday about the Blueberry Crumble dessert in a certain New York bakery. He spoke animatedly about his first experience with seeing it, tasting it, coming back for more of it and coming back for more of it again and again. He was, he professed, addicted. In fact his exact words were: “Richard, Blueberry Crumble is the crack cocaine of food.”

Upon hearing these words, I smiled, nodded my head slowly and down and replied: “Oooooooookay, I gotta go.” But his words came back to me when I read about a new book called The End of Overeating by David Kessler, who was at one time a commissioner for the Food and Drug Administration. In his book Kessler maintains that food companies have become so adept at creating food that they now have the ability to addict people, just like nicotine in cigarettes. 

Allow me to quote from a review by Bob Holmes in New Scientist magazine:

Rich in fat and sugar, [these foods] over stimulate the brain’s reward pathways, conditioning us to seek more and more. Manufacturers of processed foods and major restaurant chains all exploit this neurological vulnerability by layering fat and sugar into foods to create "craveability". "Where traditional cuisine is made to satisfy, North American industrial food is made to stimulate," Kessler writes.

And it gets worse. When we eat these hyperstimulating foods and experience the neural rewards they offer, the foods become even more stimulating the next time around. Eventually, the cues that accompany the foods - location, time of day, emotional state - become triggers that drive food-seeking behaviour. That habitual craving, Kessler says, is why he can’t resist the plate of chocolate-chip cookies on the table during meetings.

In short, my friend was actually right. He truly was addicted to Blueberry Crumble. 

So, it made me wonder if there have been any toys that were addictive. Well, as I thought about it and came to the conclusion that addiction was probably too strong a term in the clinical sense. I mean you don’t go into seizures when you have to stop playing Scrabble (well, at least most people don’t). 

But there have been toys that make you want to keep playing. It is in essence the mark of a great toy. Think jump ropes, Rubik’s Cube, Grand Theft Auto and jacks to name just a few. What they all have in common is that they make people want to keep playing.

Bottom line, the mark of a great toy may be that it creates a kind of play addiction. So, smart product developers may want to apply the addiction test: Does this product stimulate someone to keep playing?

Is that an addiction? Well maybe not in the pure sense of the word but it sure does make for a great toy.