I have long suspected that I am far from the only parent who is concerned about the amount of time their offspring spend playing the online game "Minecraft" or watching Youtube videos of other people playing the game.
An article by BBC Technology correspondent Mark Ward on the BBC website here confirms this and explains "Why Minecraft is more than just another video game."
Apparently Minecraft has a huge following estimated at about 33 million users worldwide - that's the number of copies of the game the creators have sold - particularly among children aged between about nine and fifteen, mainly but not exclusively boys. Among the keenest officionados Mark Ward describes the game as "almost a religion."
This is a remarkable level of growth for a game which is about two years old: Minecraft was
Developed in Sweden by Markus Persson and his company Mojang - officially released in 2011
Minecraft has spawned a number of spin-off businesses: for example, Bristol-based Yogscast, which produces commentary videos, became the first British Youtube channel to achieve 1bn views.
In Minecraft's favour, the game provides far more of an intellectual challenge than slouching in front of the TV would. The complexity of the worlds, structures and tools created by many players, and the sophistication of their strategies, can be remarkable. In the society which today's children will inhabit, where online skills may be critical to their success, this game is likely to be helping to develop some abilities which the players will need in the future.
The problem is deciding where the balance lies: I would not want my children or anyone else's to spend so much time in front of the computer screen that they become physically unfit or lose the ability to relate to real people or the outside world.
Again, I suspect I am not the only parent who has had some full and frank discussions with their children, and had to lay down rules, about how much time it is reasonable for them to spend on the computer. I suspect there is no right answer on how much time is right for any given child, and the only rule which is universally applicable is to keep a close eye on what your children are doing online.
An article by BBC Technology correspondent Mark Ward on the BBC website here confirms this and explains "Why Minecraft is more than just another video game."
Apparently Minecraft has a huge following estimated at about 33 million users worldwide - that's the number of copies of the game the creators have sold - particularly among children aged between about nine and fifteen, mainly but not exclusively boys. Among the keenest officionados Mark Ward describes the game as "almost a religion."
This is a remarkable level of growth for a game which is about two years old: Minecraft was
In Minecraft's favour, the game provides far more of an intellectual challenge than slouching in front of the TV would. The complexity of the worlds, structures and tools created by many players, and the sophistication of their strategies, can be remarkable. In the society which today's children will inhabit, where online skills may be critical to their success, this game is likely to be helping to develop some abilities which the players will need in the future.
The problem is deciding where the balance lies: I would not want my children or anyone else's to spend so much time in front of the computer screen that they become physically unfit or lose the ability to relate to real people or the outside world.
Again, I suspect I am not the only parent who has had some full and frank discussions with their children, and had to lay down rules, about how much time it is reasonable for them to spend on the computer. I suspect there is no right answer on how much time is right for any given child, and the only rule which is universally applicable is to keep a close eye on what your children are doing online.
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