Those are some expensive crayons indeed.
At New York University, where the annual cost for tuition, room, and board has reached a staggering $91,000, students now have access to a unique new facility: a screen-free zone reminiscent of a daycare, complete with coloring books, board games, stuffed animals, and clay.
Known as “The Nest,” this space is located on the second floor of the Kimmel Center. It features tables laden with arts and crafts supplies, a giant Connect Four game, Etch-a-Sketches, Polaroid pictures, vibrant artwork adorning the walls, and even a record player.
A prominent “PLAY” sign is perched atop a game shelf, reminding visitors to return borrowed games. This whimsical area opened its doors on February 24 at NYU’s main campus in Greenwich Village, with similar facilities debuting at the university’s locations in Abu Dhabi and Shanghai.
In this nostalgic setting, students are required to lock their phones in charging cubbies, allowing them to fully immerse themselves in activities reminiscent of their preschool days, whether it’s molding sculptures or piecing together puzzles.
Phones are locked away in charging cubbies while students revisit their preschool years — molding sculptures or completing puzzles.
While the university has pitched The Nest as a wellness hub, critics chuckled at the nanny state emerging where people who should be getting ready for adulthood.
“The infantilization of students continues — with the active cooperation of the students themselves, it should be noted,” Heather MacDonald, author and fellow at the Manhattan Institute, told The Post.
“The ever-expanding college bureaucracy became superfluous decades ago, but providing toy-filled interaction zones for undergraduates is particularly ludicrous. Any college administrator who has worked on that idea should be fired since he clearly has nothing actually important to do.”
The Nest is just one piece of the university’s broader “NYU IRL [In Real Life],” initiative aimed at getting students offline.
The campaign is the largest device-free effort taken on by any major university, NYU said in a news release.
Professor Jonathan Haidt, who teaches at NYU’s Stern School of Business, inspired the undertaking with his book “The Anxious Generation,” which discusses how the rise of smartphones sparked a mental health crisis among Gen Z.
“If colleges want to decouple students from their phones — a not unworthy goal — they should assign enough rigorous homework, without phony disability exemptions, to take up students’ attention,” Mac Donald said.
“As for getting students to talk more to each other, students can decide their own level of interaction. They should not be taught to expect their coddling bureaucrats to provide them with prompts.”
But students cheered The Nest for offering a much-needed change of pace from their screen-centered lives.
“I love that the school is encouraging digital-free zones, especially because everything is so focused on your laptops and your phones,” Alexandra Robinson Bellin, 18, of Chicago, told The Post from a couch adorned with plush toys.
The freshman drama major fondly recalled an Uno tournament she and her friends had attended days prior — one of the many events urging students to live in the real world instead of being swallowed by their screens.
“It’s a lot of games and a lot of crafts. These are things you don’t usually do at university,” sophomore business major Avani Advani, 19, a student-worker at the lounge from India, acknowledged.
“Without this place, I don’t feel like I would be playing games that I used to play in my childhood … It’s such a nice way to connect with things that you used to do so you feel that sense of belonging.”
With puzzles, Play Dough and board games everywhere — students have had no trouble recreating their childhood wonder.
“It’s a nice place to come to unwind, eat, and maybe play a game of Uno after class,” Zihao Huang, 18, a freshman education major from Brooklyn said. “It’s good to take a break from the devices that we are connected to every single minute of every single day.”
