Stuck in a Creative Rut? Try Playing Minecraft
Stuck in a Creative Rut? Try Playing Minecraft
The debate about the impact of video games has been raging for decades. Are video games conditioning society towards more violence? Or are they harmless means of entertainment? While research varies depending on the source, one thing is for sure. Video games certainly influence the human brain and the way that it functions.
Growing up, our parents (I’m 22 years old) warned us about the dangers that came with playing videos games for too many hours at a time. We were all convinced that much like television, video games would rot our brains. However, Modern scientific research on video games is taking issue with mom and dad’s advice.
According to research published in American Psychologist, playing video games has been linked to increasing a child’s learning and social skills. Some video games were even found to impact a person’s mood and overall emotions positively. Easily accessible video games, like Angry Birds, can reduce anxiety and stress while promoting a sense of comfort.
A separate study from Spanish researchers found that video games provide the perfect settings and conditions to help strengthen our cognitive skills. Video games can improve a wide range of cognitive skills such as spatial awareness, memory, and logic/reasoning skills. So, in a way, if you spent your childhood playing video games for days on end, you would have been building up your cognitive skills without even realizing it.
The effect of video games on the brain does not stop at our cognitive skills. Certain kinds of video games have been found to help foster creative thinking as well. A study conducted by Iowa State University sought to explore how certain types of video games impact creativity compared to watching television. The researchers focused their study on video games that featured a 3D building aspect like Minecraft. The video game, Minecraft, is a lot like a Lego world where players can build structures while exploring the different worlds of the game.
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The experiment analyzed the impact that playing Minecraft, with or without instruction, to watching a TV show or playing a racing video game had on the participant’s creativity. Researchers then measured the participant’s creative output through a series of exercises like asking the participants to design a creature, not from this Earth. The more human-like the creature was, the less participants scored in creativity. Eventually, the participants allowed to play Minecraft without instruction were found to be the most creative.
While Minecraft promoted creative thinking, researchers were wary of labeling it as a “cure-all” for anyone having problems with their creativity. Instead, Douglas Gentile, a lead researcher on the experiment, hoped to determine how Minecraft manages to increase a person’s creativity.
For one, Minecraft is a game that has very few rules or objectives. The game’s ambiguous directions allow for a high level of player freedom. Researchers believe it is this player freedom that encourages creative expression. Without specific directions, players are left to explore the Minecraft world while entertaining themselves, which manifests as creative expression.
Another possible explanation theorized by Gentile is based on his past research. Gentile previously focused on the influence video games can have on a player’s behavior. His published study found that the content and context of a video game can encourage learned behavior because of the repeated experiences involved with playing the game. Gentile is concluding that the same could be said for creativity. The repeated experience of playing Minecraft and dealing with ambiguous directions could help facilitate more creative expression.
It’s no surprise that video games with 3D building aspects like Minecraft are believed to help enhance the player’s creative thinking skills. It may not even be due to the game’s open-ended directions. The important part to focus on here is the video game’s 3D building aspects, which function a lot like building blocks or Legos.
Legos have historically been designed to help foster creativity and imagination among children. The brand’s tenets of “playing, designing, building, wrecking it, and doing it again” is a promise to helping inspire creativity in every new generation. Free building, or building what you’d like as opposed to following the directions of a specific Lego kit, is thought to benefit creative thinking widely. Free building has been proven to help measure how abstract, elaborate, and original our ideas genuinely are.
If free building is thought to result in creative inspiration, then it becomes quite clear how and why Minecraft has an effect on creativity. Playing Minecraft is free building with Legos without having to deal with the parameters of the real world. Suddenly, we are not constrained by space, gravity, or even the number of Legos we have access to. Through Minecraft, players are essentially free building without limitations, which means their creativity is also free of constraints.
Most video games encourage at least some level of creative thinking. In role-playing games, players design original characters and storylines. While in competitive games, players may only win using creative strategies. However, it seems that video games with 3D building aspects have the most positive influence on a player’s creativity. The next time you feel stuck in a creative rut, try spending some time playing Minecraft and remove the self-imposed limitations from your creativity.
