Beyond 'Screen Time:' What Minecraft Teaches Kids

Minecraft is one of the most popular games in the United States with over 100 million registered users. But Minecraft is different than other video games because the object is to construct, not to tear down.

It's a video game, but it can also be classified as a building toy.

Parents are faced with difficult choices about technology. The prevailing wisdom is that “screen time” is bad for children. But can Minecraft be lumped in with the rest of the things that kids might do on a computer or phone?

Minecraft offers youth the opportunity to explore an environment that is not rule-based like the rest of their lives. Not only does the open-world nature of Minecraft give children the opportunity to be more creative, it allows them to feel like they have a sense of control over themselves and their environment. It’s an implicit way for them to develop self-regulation skills that then transfer to offline spaces -- through having this freedom to create on Minecraft, they learn how to identify and work towards offline goals like finishing class assignments or graduating from college later in life.

Playing Minecraft teaches kids useful skills. The most clearly visible are visuospatial reasoning skills -- learning how to manipulate objects in space in a way that helps them create dynamic structures.

Educators should take note and realize how they can leverage Minecraft. Some ideas include: letting kids share what they are building in the game and having them describe how they are interacting with their peers; setting up Minecraft hackathons where students who know how to mod can teach others how to do so; and devoting some class or after-school time to allowing kids to work on Minecraft-based assignments.