Ever since kids started to congregate in basements to play Pong, gaming has been a scapegoat for laziness, obesity, and low intelligence across the globe. As violence continues to grow, and education takes a downward spiral, video games become an easier target. It’s one of the fastest growing industries of products aimed primarily at the younger generation, but that doesn’t make gaming at fault for their problems.

To say that there aren’t many negative issues with young kids here is an obvious lie. Homicide is still the second leading cause of death with teens. One in six is officially obese. Researchers felt the need to show what was behind these disturbing trends, and concerned parents wanted to be told. Many ultimately decided on video games (others on rap music, or television). While video games have been criticized for decades, it wasn’t until about 2000 when studies started being released and violence in games became a “crisis” according to the media.

Among those who jumped along the bandwagon were senators Joe Lieberman and Hillary Clinton. Both promised to do their part in passing laws that would restrict the content of video games. They all basically set out to show the correlation between violence in games and other media and violent behavior. What they ended up concluding was that these forms of entertainment could be considered a cause of such behavior. So, they were able to show some connection but not that they necessarily cause violence. Basically this could just mean that violent people are attracted to violent games to begin with. Some information tells quite a different tale. Video games may do just the opposite for some. After all, while the video game industry was at its peak in the late nineties, there were significantly less violent crime arrests among teens. In doing these studies they also proved who it was really had their hands on violent games.

Most people probably imagine gamers as being little snotty-nosed kids sitting on their mom’s couch. This is an illusion. They are much more likely to be thirty year old men sitting on their mom’s couch. In fact, the average age of gamers is thirty-three years old. Yet whenever the content of video games is discussed, it is the children who are brought up as falling victim to it. In many senses video games can be seen as a replacement to board games. How many kids after playing monopoly want to go out and become real estate agents? Probably not many. The same applies with video games. Gamers recognize it as just a way to have fun and kill some time, not a way to feed the fury with in them.

It may be hard to see the benefits of playing video games, but there are a number of them. One of the most well known ones is the use of hand eye coordination. It’s true most video games require a great deal of it, but also many other mental skills like memory and problem solving. Tell that to your parents next time you’re about to beat the next level of Halo. Believe it or not, video games are also a great way for people to connect with each other. With technology that allows players to play and talk with people half way across the world, like Xbox Live, this is entirely possible. People have very little exposure to other people in different parts of the world, so it opens up a chance for them to share something.

Gaming is many senses like pop culture’s ugly little step sister who happens to be very fun to play with. It is easy to claim that it does more damage than good, though is it fair to label it as such a huge force when there is so much that’s accessible through the rest of entertainment? The next time someone turns off their console because the game wasn’t violent enough, all they have to do is turn on the news to get their fix.