There I sat in the library, staring at my computer screen.

How long had I been there? Who knows? But one thing was certain: Suzzallo's Puritan-era wooden chairs were taking their brutal toll on my behind, and the library's fluorescent lighting was beginning to burn into my temples.

In the last half hour, I had written about three sentences of my thesis.

Looking out the window as the afternoon light streamed in, I realized it was time to play.

The notion of play is rarely used when describing the normal routine of an adult. And, unfortunately, it is used less and less when describing the routine of a child.

According to a recent New York Times article, not only are children rapidly losing time previously allotted for play, but the play they are allowed has become so sanitized and supervised that soon children may lose the ability to play altogether.

Outlandish? Perhaps, but according to Joe L. Frost, an emeritus professor of education at the University of Texas, there is a striking correlation between the decrease in playtime over the last decade and the rapid increase in childhood depression and obesity.

"From a child development perspective, children need access to an environment that allows them to play out what is natural to them — physical, dramatic, constructive and spontaneous games," said Frost, who is an expert on play and playgrounds around the world, in an interview. "But in our high-tech society, children go indoors right after school and eat junk food and play video games."

Frost, along with a host of other pediatric scholars, argues that, in addition to the reduction in playtime at many schools, playgrounds have become so simplified and risk-averse due to the threat of lawsuits, children above age 5 or 6 consider them boring.

Think about it: When was the last time you saw one of those "whirly-gig" spinning platforms on a playground?

As a child, this was my favorite playtime amenity, and I took great pleasure tirelessly spinning others and allowing myself to be spun to the point of utter nausea.

A large potential for injury and legal action? Definitely — I certainly banged my head a few times and procured a host of splinters. The best part of my day from ages 7 to 10? Absolutely.

I recently visited a community playground on Capitol Hill at Cal Anderson Park in attempts to find my cherished spinning platform and test my aging constitution. Not only was it nowhere to be found, but the playground toys were so safe, they looked like puffy, primary-colored clouds that would bore a 4-year-old.

Even the slide's gradient looked as if would be more hindering than helpful to the forces of gravity.

Something inside me was repulsed, and I wondered, "What will happen when, due to fear of litigation and time constraints caused by copious testing, children no longer know how to play?"

Tragically, many of these hypothetical children aren't children any more.

They're my age.

They're constantly stressed and agitated. They have panic attacks. They're always tired. They drink far too much coffee. Several of them have developed ulcers. And many complain of eye twitches.

Soon to enter the university will be even more young adults so protected from the "possibilities of injury" caused by play that they neglect to realize its vital importance in life.

"Children have to learn to take reasonable physical and social risks if they are to become the confident grown-ups parents want them to be. If children are constantly being told not to do things because it's too dangerous or they might get hurt, parents are teaching them that they are weak," Franklin Stone, a lawyer and community activist for children's access to free play, told The New York Times.

Play — and, if you've forgotten, the Encarta World English Dictionary defines it as "to take part in enjoyable activity for the sake of amusement" — is not an activity limited by age, and it doesn't have to involve a set of monkey bars and a seesaw.

I re-saved the three-sentence addition to my thesis, closed my laptop, packed up my books and walked to Sekuma Viewpoint (the small park next to Agua Verde), where I spent the next hour playing with a host of strangers' dogs and helping a 5-year-old boy feed crusts of bread to the ducks.

My fluorescent-lighting headache went away, and I could always bang out a page or two later in the evening if I needed to.

I know the power of play. Let's all hope that as we progress in society, younger generations will know its power, as well.

Reach Maureen Trantham at opinion@thedaily.washington.edu.