Until recently, I thought Minecraft was an updated sort of Battleships for the computer age. Until a friend’s kid showed me his Minecraft world. Showed me briefly, ‘cos he hadn’t time to waste talking to an old fart like me when had to get back to … whatever the hell it is you do on (in?) Minecraft.
Made me realise it’s too easy to dismiss “this sort of thing” out of hand. Minecraft and stuff like it might be shaping a generation, but as parent Emily Willingham writes, that’s not necessarily a bad thing:
Thanks to Minecraft, my children not only have built entire worlds but also have learned to type, read Dutch, catalogue and plan use of materials, and work with friends and strangers through intense negotiation and conflict resolution while navigating an imagined world they’ve built together. And they’re collectively experiencing and developing a key cultural influence of their generation, one with a global reach.
That’s far more than I was capable of doing at their age.
[Hat tip Stephen Hicks]
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