Björn Jeffery

They don’t write them like this any more. I used to listen to this on cassette when I grew up. Lines like “I had taken furnished lodgings down at Rustington-on-Sea”.

Gender preferences for toys only show up after children learn about their gender. Babies show no preference, Brown says.

In fact, when it comes to the actual toys kids like to play with, there is more variability within a gender than there is between genders, says Sweet. For example, she points out that studies of young children have shown that boys are no more likely than girls to enjoy playing with a toy with wheels, something traditionally given to boys.

Few things have changed as much as the British appetite for tea. Tea consumption per person has fallen consistently since the early 1970s, plummeting from almost 68 grams per week in 1974 to only 25 grams per week in 2014, as shown in the chart at the bottom right. The plunge of more than 63 percent is one of the biggest among all beverages in the country. Only the consumption of malt drinks and coffee essences (whatever those are), have fallen by more.

Spin Master Corp. – a leading global children’s entertainment company – today announced that it has agreed to acquire the Toca Boca and Sago Mini companies from the Bonnier Group of Sweden.

Also, we’re celebrating the weird. Not everything should be like Disney and Apple. Those are too perfect; we want our things to have flaws, and to be a bit weird, while also referencing the everyday

We also find ourselves living in an increasingly protected world where everything from forks to table edges to flooring have been designed child safe at a premium and marketed to the fears of parents. I understand that parents including myself want the safe side of everything, but the problem is we need to take a little leap of faith for interesting life experiences. Take a little risk, but make sure there is adult supervision. And adult sensibility.

Part of what makes Toca Boca games so lovable is also their business downfall, in a sense. A parent might buy an app for $2.99 in 2013 and still have the same app, with no additional payments, on her phone three years later. “My hope is that you’ll keep that in mind,” said Jeffery. “When a parent needs to find a new game easily, in an airport or on a Saturday morning when a kid needs a treat, [that experience means] they will go looking for another Toca Boca game.”

“It’s a slower way: Building a company, building a brand. It’s the way that we chose; it’s not the way to make quick money.”

Nobody likes games where the rules are rigged in favor of one player. That’s almost certainly one reason why investors don’t seem very keen to put their money behind Zynga, the once high-flying video-game maker founded by Mark Pincus, who brought FarmVille to the Facebook masses. Liquidating the $2 billion company and returning the proceeds to shareholders is probably the best option at this point.

Santi is back! And in good form too.

Björn Jeffery, co-founder of Toca Boca children’s apps, is evangelical about the benefits of unstructured play. “It’s being treated as something that is not very important,” he tells Quartz. “It’s the thing you do to relax between Mandarin immersion classes.”

Is there a digital solution to unstructured, creativity-enhancing play?