Does Minecraft make you smarter?

  With kids spending most of the time on screen, video games take up most of the time of it. With this parents might know Minecraft, undoubtedly the most popular and loved game out there. While most other games don't develop cognitive skills much, this game has beliefs to make kids smarter (It also has some potential though!).

  As far as best, non-violent and educational games are concerned, Minecraft is unarguably the top in the list. It teaches kids much value than other games. Studies found out that people who played the game were ready to show increased communication, adaptability and resourcefulness scales, compared to the control group – all skills that are seen as being key for graduate success. Most of those benefits are due to how the game is structured. With no real storyline and limited direction on the way to play, children are mostly liberal to decide how they need to interact with the game.

  Whilst Minecraft can't increase your IQ, it does have myriad of educational, academic and real life benefits:

  Ofcourse, the most striking benefit of Minecraft is enhanced creativity! With infinte amount of options this game has to offer, children (and adults) can build literally anything. Their own castles, forts or nevertheless a house of their dreams! Any thing imagined can be built! And if one decides to make something like this, he/ she also excels in project planning skills. 

  Minecraft is exclusive, therein it allows players to line their own goals and offers a huge amount of freedom in how they meet challenges. Although most games will promote problem-solving skills to an extent, Minecraft is different. For example, any basic survival gameplay includes intial challenges like finding food and a shelter without which they will have a hard time playing, or worst die in the game! The next challenges are the monsters which they need to fight for survival, like creepers,  cave spiders, skeletons etc. Then when they learn to safeguard themselves from these monsters, players have new challenges in different dimensions like the Nether, and the End. This game indeed improves problem-solving skills! However, players think outside the box since there are not any in-game tutorials for fixing these problems. This suggests that need to use their brain quite the other computer game we’ve ever encountered. And thus each one has their own way to solve them!

  Strangely, this is the only game I have encountered that teaches children basic knowledge and principles of programming. Although it won’t teach your kid a programing language, use of Redstone blocks will introduce them to the elemental logic of coding. This successively makes Minecraft good for his or her brain and will be said to form them smarter. Redstone introduces IF, THEN, ELSE, and END functions to players, which can be used to build mechanisms that range from relatively simple to ridiculously complex. Kids can learn to progress from automated doors, sneaky traps, and elevators, to completely functioning automatic farms and much more!

  When playing in Survival mode, players will quickly need to learn resource management. Finding and gathering the proper resources for specific projects takes time, with the foremost valuable blocks being the rarest to seek out. Diamonds, for instance , take a specific mining tool and sometimes require players to dig as far down as the level will allow them to go. Even then, it can take half an hour or more to locate a diamond vein, which can typically only provide eight blocks. Players will quickly learn to manage the resources they need and to be sparing with what they use. Trees that are logged will disappear forever unless replanted. Even then, they take time to regrow. Animals are often hunted but will become scarce with time. To assist with this, players can capture animals and manage them as livestock. Doing this will give players a steady source of eggs, wool, and meat. Whatever the goal, Minecraft is a superb way of teaching children that resources are limited and need careful managing. 

  Multiplayer Minecraft is also an excellent way children learn dividing chores, co-operation, leadership skills etc.

  The most crucial part of any Minecraft world is to build homes, farms, dig down minerals and patiently work on redstone machines. These all include failures and patience. Thus Minecraft reinforces patience, perseverance and facing failures.

  So conclusively, it’s absolutely possible to develop important cognitive skills while having fun playing Minecraft, a fun game where sky truly is the limit! It makes you smarter! 

  And hey! If you are from one of those folks who love playing Minecraft, comment below your thoughts and also things I may have missed!

Posts before October 2021 have been marked as "Old Posts". Less likely, but they might have out dated or incorrect information, ugly looking bits of code, no labels, etc. Don't get me wrong, many of these posts are top-notch and interesting too.

I thought it would be better not to delete or revamp these posts, even if they suck. The bitter truth is that old works always suck, but I take that as a positive tool to convey that I am growing. Besides there's no better way to showcase my journey without these old, messy, poorly written posts!

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