Playing video games like Minecraft may help to get your child’s creative flowing. Video games that foster creative freedom can increase creativity under certain conditions, according to a study from Iowa State University. Their experiment compared the effect of playing Minecraft, with or without instruction, to watching a TV show or playing a race car video game. Those given the freedom to play Minecraft without instruction were most creative, experts found. Minecraft is like a virtual Lego world. The game, which has sold more than 100 million copies, allows players to explore unique worlds and create anything they can imagine.
New American research has found that video games such as “Minecraft” may help increase creativity when players are given the freedom to play as they want, with no instruction.
Carried out by researchers from Iowa State University, the new study looked at 352 students at the university who were randomly assigned to one of four groups. Two of the groups were asked to play “Minecraft”, a virtual Lego-style game where you can build anything that you can imagine. But while one of the groups was asked to play as they wished for 40 minutes, the other group received the instruction to play as creatively as possible. A third group was asked to play a different style of the video game, a racing car video game, which does not allow players to be as creative as “Minecraft”, while participants in the fourth group were asked to passively watch a television show.
After 40 minutes of each activity, all participants were asked to complete several creativity tasks, one of which involved drawing a creature from another planet.
The more human-like the creature, the lower the participants scored low for creativity, and the less human-like the creature, the higher the creativity score.
The findings, published in the Creativity Research Journal, showed that the participants who were randomly assigned to play “Minecraft” without any instruction received significantly higher scores on the creativity task compared to those who played “Minecraft” with the instruction to “be creative,” as well as those who played the driving game and those who watched television. The researchers commented that the results indicate that the effect on creativity is not just down to the type of game played, “Minecraft” being a good example of a game with few rules, a high amount of player freedom, and which encourages creative expression, but also the way the player plays.
‘It’s not just that Minecraft can help induce creativity, there seems to be something about choosing to do it that also matters,’ said a man studying how minecraft is proven to be the most creative game.
Most video games encourage players to practice some level of creativity.
For example, players may create a character and story for role-playing games or be rewarded for creative strategies in competitive games. The researchers say even first-person shooter games can potentially inspire creativity as players think about strategy and look for advantages in combat. ‘The research is starting to tell a more interesting, unkown picture,’ Professor Gentile added.
‘Our results are similar to other gaming research in that you get better at what you practice, but how you practice might matter just as much.’
Previous research on playing video games has provided mixed results on whether it has a harmful or beneficial effect on health and mental well-being. The team said that the new findings suggest that video games could have the potential to be an engaging way to learn and increase creativity. “The research is starting to tell a more interesting, nuanced picture. Our results are similar to other gaming research in that you get better at what you practice, but how you practice might matter just as much,” Gentile said.
