BBC News – 03 March 2015 – Should parents ever worry about Minecraft?
Parenting websites are full of stories. If not actually playing Minecraft, parents report that their children watch videos of other people playing it.
The statistics are astounding – one group of Minecraft gamers, Yogscast, based in Bristol, is watched for 37 million minutes every day, and they are not the biggest.
The stars of Minecraft, like “Stampy Longnose” are to this generation of children what John Noakes was to mine, except Blue Peter was only on twice a week, whereas Stampy is viewable all day, every day, a permanent uninvited guest in some households.
I hesitate to use the word “addicted”, but for some children it seems to fit.
Dr Richard Graham, a consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist who runs a technology addiction unit at the private Nightingale Hospital in London, sees children with a serious Minecraft habit. He talks about the game’s “hyper-reality” which he says makes the external world “slower, paler, less stimulating”.
The full article can be found here.
