Most parents worry that modern children spend a lot of time playing computer games. The reasons for this concern are understandable, because in the childhood of the parents themselves there were no computer games, or they were simply not very popular. Therefore, games in the yard seem to them a priori something more correct and useful. Some adults also believe that video games can make their children stupid, completely separating them from the outside world, or make players more violent. In this article, we will introduce you to the most popular game in the world: Minecraft, and share our observations about its effect on the brain of a child.
To begin with, the Minecraft world consists entirely of cubic blocks that can be destroyed or put on top of each other, forming new structures and buildings. Everything that a player cuts or digs (wood, stones, sand, etc.) turns into new blocks for building and crafting. Moreover, he can build houses, castles, fences, or statues of any form: the game does not fetter his imagination at all.
The world is endless and automatically expands as the player moves around the map. Since the world isn’t limited in width, it is possible to build not only a house, but even a whole city. For example, Minecraft players have already recreated Royal Harbor from Game of Thrones and Denmark’s real-size model. There is only a vertical restriction: you can build only 256 blocks in height. But even then, on the Internet, you can find mods that remove this restriction and allow you to build entire skyscrapers.
The benefits of block games for the development of a child began to be discussed long before the advent of Minecraft. For example, the English philosopher John Locke spoke about the benefits of alphabetical cubes, and a century later, Friedrich Fröbel, the creator of the kindergarten, developed toys in the form of cubic blocks, which, according to him, teach the child to understand the complex connections of all things in the world. Indeed, during the game, they move from simple to complex relationships. Then his ideas were adopted by the famous teacher Maria Montessori, who taught children mathematics using wooden blocks. Finnish and Swedish educators of the late 19th century were worried that due to global industrialization, children would completely forget their work skills. Therefore, they decided to introduce a discipline in schools called “sloyd”, which teaches children carpentry. Lessons of “sloyd” (manual labor) are held in many Scandinavian schools today.
Perhaps the creator of Minecraft, Marcus Persson, also attended such lessons. Also, Lego construction kits, which began to be sold back in the 30s of the last century are still popular. As before, they are positioned as educational and pacifying toys for children. And the Minecraft game created in 2009 can be considered their virtual alternative.
But perhaps the most wonderful thing about Minecraft is the Redstone – a virtual analog of electrical circuits. With its help, players create mechanisms of any complexity. One of the most famous technical inventions in Minecraft is a working computer. Players often post their inventions on Youtube and gaming forums, so that other people can learn to do the same, and perhaps one day come up with awesome mechanisms on their own. Thus, in Minecraft, children solve problems similar to those that programmers work with every day. Every now and then they encounter errors when the Redstone blocks are connected incorrectly. And then they are forced to meticulously figure out where the problem arose and correct it.
On the Internet, you can find many stories about how students playing Minecraft use the highest degree of creativity in the game.
For example, the eleven-year-old boy Jordan, who was carried away by the science fiction novel “The Maze Runner”, in which teens live in a maze with traps, decided to recreate a similar maze in Minecraft. And he managed to create a maze with traps in the spirit of “Indiana Jones”. But this was not enough for Jordan: he wanted his traps to be unpredictable. The schoolboy puzzled for a long time about how to arrange this, and suddenly he remembered the existence of such an animal as a mushroom cow in the game. Mushroom cows in Minecraft are known for their random wandering around the map. And a brilliant thought dawned on him: to use the strange behavior of a cow to introduce an element of chance. One of its traps was a stone corral with pressure plates, which are randomly pressed by mushroom cows loitering inside. Thus, this student created, in fact, a random number generator in Minecraft.
Even if your child does not seek to become an innovator, but simply plays Minecraft, as well as other games, it will still benefit him. Although a new recipe book for crafting (crafting items) has appeared in new versions of Minecraft, for the most part, a child has to figure out how to play on his own. For example, the game doesn’t lead by the handle and does not explain how to get to the main mob (creature) in the game: Enderdragon. The game doesn’t warn that you shouldn’t dig under yourself, so as not to fall into the lava. The player finds out all this on his own experience, or learns on the Internet. The same applies to the Redstone mechanisms mentioned above. To learn how to create them, the child has to read various electronic guides on the game, watch video tutorials.
While leading IT companies such as Google, Apple and Microsoft are trying to simplify the interface of all computer programs as much as possible so as not to force users to delve into their technical component, Minecraft, on the contrary, encourages players to delve into the very core of the game and learn to program. With the help of Minecraft, many teenagers learn Java and create their own modifications of the game.
In this regard, the generation of Minecraft-inspired schoolchildren is reminiscent of the generation of 70-80s teenagers who mastered the first personal computers like Commodore 64 and boasted their own programs using the Basic programming language. Minecraft creator Marcus Persson was such a teenager.
Therefore, we are convinced that the Minecraft game doesn’t exactly make your child stupid or lazy, but rather makes him smarter and more curious.
Many parents are also worried about violence in games, because supposedly it can lead to cruel acts in reality. Gamers argue with this hypothesis, convincing that games on the contrary help to throw out the accumulated aggression. Both of them may turn out to be right, but we can assure you that there are really no violent scenes in Minecraft. That is, they look completely unrealistic. For example, when a player hits a pig to get meat, the pig simply disappears. Same thing with other creatures. A child can only be frightened by the sudden appearance of enemy mobs, accompanied by characteristic sounds. Therefore, officially this game is intended for children over 7 years old.
Thus, if your child plays Minecraft, don’t worry about this. Most likely, this game will only improve his logic and creativity. Minecraft is even used in some schools to teach programming, maths, urban planning, and other useful skills.
Unfortunately, this wonderful educational game is paid, but not all parents are willing to spend real money on video games. Therefore, if your child begs to buy him Minecraft, and you do not have money for it, then you can download Realmcraft. This is a free alternative to Minecraft for smartphones and tablets, which has all the main functions of the original: the possibility of endless construction with cubes and the design of mechanisms using electrum (an analog of Redstone).
