I learned the other day how out of touch with popular culture I was. I was attending a small gathering of people of different ages. People were being asked different party-style quiz questions. Those who answered their questions correctly were allowed to unwrap some plastic wrap from a big plastic wrap ball that was filled with all sorts of different novelty items and take the next available item. I got a fidget. Now you see I was always accustomed to use the word fidget as a verb. Never as a noun. For those of you who are as ignorant as I was, a fidget is a toy that allows one to express his nervousness through squeezing it or pressing on it. The squeeze toys are shaped like little plastic animals. The press toys are shaped like little wrist watch bands or like miniature washboards, again made out of plastic. Both kinds are filled with little circles that a person presses down on and then up again. Squeezing and pressing. That is all that there is to these toys. Students take them to their classes where they get rid of their nervousness and anxiety, by squeezing them and pressing on them. It’s one of the few things that students can bring to class that teachers don’t object to, primarily because they are so unobtrusive. And because, unlike phones, they don’t distract. On the contrary, because they give the students an outlet for their fidgetiness, the toys supposedly allow them to concentrate on what the teacher is saying.
We have the key to all of our children’s study problems right here (lol). Just give them more and more fidgets and watch their grades climb. Furthermore, make sure that students with antisocial tendencies get plenty of fidgets to take out all of their aggressive energies on something other than their fellow classmates. All kidding aside, it is obvious that these fidgets are filling a void in these young people’s lives. I would submit that the void being filled is the experiential vacuum that has been the main subject of the articles in this column. These fidgets generate the kind of abrasive stimulation with the repetitive up and down actions that one does with them, actions that help to pull the person out of his numbness, out of the experiential vacuum.
The problem with these fidget toys is that they mask the real problem of these young people. On one level, they are like a band-aid that covers up the problem. On another level, they are a kind of kicks much like recreational drugs, but on a much smaller level. Now I’m not saying that fidgets have the same impact on a person’s health that say cocaine does. But precisely because they appear so harmless, a person can go through the day using them, helping him to function, while some real emotional problems generated at least in part by the sensorily distorted living environment in which he resides are not being dealt with. The fact that fidgets have become so widespread shows how extensive the need is to deal with the harmful effects created by the somewhat frictionless understimulation that comes from the experiential vacuum. In particular, they help in a very small way, much smaller than say recreational drugs, to pull a young person out of the numbness that is so pervasive in modern technological society.
Whereas recreational drugs have a lot of harmful side effects for a person’s health, fidgets don’t seem to have any. So, one can say that isn’t it great that fidgets don’t have any, because that means that a person can use them non-stop without any negative physical consequences occurring. Except, of course, there is a possibility that a person could get carpel tunnel syndrome, if he really fidgeted with the fidgets non-stop. But this is just a hypothetical notion, and I would have to see some statistical evidence to accept the reality of such possible negative effects of fidgets.
What can be said is that the lack of obvious negative side effects from fidgets is precisely what allows deeper problems to flourish as a result of living in a modern technological living environment. They are a distraction from the primary cause of the popularity of the fidgets which is the increasing frictionless understimulation of the modern technological living environment. Until this cause is confronted head on, fidgets will simply be a bridge to more intense forms of abrasive stimulation like cocaine and methamphetamine. Sounds funny to include fidgets with recreational drugs, but just think about it.
© 2025 Laurence Mesirow
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