The Effectiveness of Traditional Theatre and Digital Interactive Theatre in Developing Communication and Creativity Skills in Children with Excessive Screen Use: A Comparative Analytical Approach -A Comparative Analytical Approach-

Abstract

In a rapidly accelerating world that seeks depth and distinction in fast communication, learners face a real challenge: they must process their surroundings quickly while achieving distinction and creativity. Our belonging to an open world today exposes us to multiple angles of auditory, visual and cognitive perception, urging us to understand the child who has grown accustomed to screens and immediate leaps. This situation presents us with a significant challenge: how can we develop this group’s cognitive and psychological personality by harnessing play, which forms an essential part of their daily activity and cannot be underestimated?

Play creates psychological, sensory and cognitive relationships between the child and their learning environment. These relationships enable the child to overcome obstacles and process emotions that they have not yet learned to deal with appropriately. Play also supports the formation of healthy relationships with peers, contributing to a child’s personal and mental development. With this in mind, we consider traditional theatre and improvisational (interactive) theatre to be complementary strategies to the child’s play instinct. These strategies introduce new parameters through which children can learn performance techniques and ‘ways of working’. The child should grasp these techniques instinctively while simultaneously building their ability to perceive, capture and analyse during the interactive performance stage.

This methodological sequence, moving from innate play to interactive performance, helps child learners achieve fair and balanced integration into a rapidly growing, diverse society. This leads us to a central idea: the need to support this group of learners constructively and productively, using simple methods to help them express their potential without denying their right to distinctiveness and creativity.

To further clarify this idea, we must move beyond unifying visions of ideal beauty and instead encourage what is different from us. We must respect the child’s physical and psychological capacities and redefine what is beautiful, ideal and authentically creative.