I find it odd that adults often justify their children’s use of Minecraft as educational. What we know is that children have been targeted as subjects and sites of consumption, and that psychology has a close relationship with advertising. Games have significantly disrupted the political economic model of the ‘consumer society’ and its use of mass media. What challenges psychology is that games such as Minecraft defy their experimental designs and focus on individual behaviour and cognition.
Minecraft demands a focus on ‘the masses’ which psychology believes is detrimental, and is of course neither a politically neutral science or are their negative claims about games proven. Minecraft shifts the cultural focus from consumption to production. That is what freaks out mass media and advertising, and therefore spooks their friends in psychology. This is the worst case scenario of John Watsons followers … that people are not made happy and docile by consumption … they want to produce and change the corporeal and virtual world.
this is not a bad thing for childhood. it is far more significant than whether of not kids are learning about math. this is a battle for freedom.
Playable 