Following the launch of Lego Hidden Side, Lego conducted a survey with UK parents and children on toys and digital play.

This year, the Lego Group released Lego Hidden Side – a new range blending traditional physical Lego play with a digital AR enabled app to extend the play experience.

New statistics reveal that British parents are beginning to embrace the benefits of digital play for their children, with 46% of parents believing their child’s problem-solving skills have improved as a result.

The new report investigates the fusion of physical and digital play, or ‘Phygital’ and surveyed 500 UK adults and 500 UK children aged between 7-10 about their experiences playing with both physical toys and digital toys. While the report found children and parents to be increasingly receptive to digital toys, traditional toy-play was found to enable the most imagination for children. 60% of kids stated that physical toys allow them to be more imaginative and it was found that 68% would like to see more toys mix the digital and physical world.

Despite a stigma around screen time, a third of parents feel that digital toys help prepare children for the future and 40% feel it helps build their child’s creativity. However, 2 in 5 UK parents believe that traditional toys aid manual skills and co-ordination and 48% feel that their child’s social skills also improve as a result. Moreover, a quarter of UK parents would like to see more toys merge play with digital or app elements, allowing children to get the best of both worlds.

In response to this trend, Lego Hidden Side marks the first time the company introduces a play theme that blends physical and digital play (Phygital) with the release of an AR enabled smartphone app alongside classic Lego bricks. The app experience will continue to expand with the addition of new ghosts, new game challenges, and new gameplay.

Marius Lang, head of marketing at Lego for the UK and Ireland, said: “We’ve always been focused on inspiring and developing the creativity of the builders of tomorrow and we believe that ‘Phygital’ play is a new, innovative way of doing so, blending our traditional bricks that sit at the core of everything we do with an innovative new solution. Lego Hidden Side is a totally new, experience-driven, story-supported play theme that blurs the lines between physical and digital play. It is the only play experience available today that seamlessly fuses augmented reality with physical constructions.”