To me, there is quite a difference between being addicted, and lacking reason not to do something. If kids spend their time reading, practicing football or being with their friends, no one would ever call that being addicted. Yet, they have the nerve to compare gaming interest to substance abusing when they speak about addiction and damage.

Someone who plays a lot of games, but handles every other aspect of life (social, studies, hygiene etc) perfectly fine too -- no one cares about, he or she is totally uninteresting to therapists who always look for victims. These people represent the vast majority.
Someone who plays a lot of games, but performs bad in school or has few friends -- they are addicts. It's the video games' fault. This is a minor fragment of gamers.

Now compare this to having a chemical addiction, say... cocaine. Is it true that an overwhelming majority of the people who frequently uses cocaine do well in school, make friends and live a life like everyone else? No. The argument fails, because even if video games are addictive they don't harm their victims.

Video games is a very broad hobby and appeals to huge amounts of people, regardless of background. Still, what seems to misinformed people (to say the least) puts video games to blame for social problems that has occured long before Super Mario existed. The whole discussion is absurd. It is like blaming football for the social problems among youth in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro.

Not sure if I managed to get my point across because it's hard to express myself in english. But basically what I mean is that the stereotypical image of a lonely child sitting in front of his/her computer just isn't as accurate as doomsayers have you believe. Blaming a hobby has never been and never will be a professional way to analyze social problems.

And also, god forbid children finding it more interesting with video games than doing sports or studying, right...?

Beware of the Fun Police !!! Just another narrow minded adult with an axe to grind. It's not addiction, unless addiction and boredom are one in the same thing !!

How about give children or teenagers something more to do, something more to aspire too. Positive role models etc. etc. We've heard all this a thousand times before. Let's not keep beating the parents over the heads with all this "Bad Parenting" crap because it's just not the case.

When I was in my teens (I'm 30 now) I was far more interesting in Entertaining myself through various other means, predominantly Computers and computer games. School was boring, the syllabus is un-interesting and for those like myself that we're practically minded, a complete waste of time. Of course kids are going to find computer games or other forms of entertainment far more interesting and so of course their going to put more and more time into it. It's not anybody fault. 40 years ago adults were saying this about the effects of comic books on children and before that radio and television, so this isn't a new phenomenon by any stretch of the imagination.

Maybe rather than bleating about the how bad computer games are for our children. How about looking at why certain children become so disillusioned about society and what we can do about that? It's not the children playing computer games that are running around London at the moment stabbing one another is it? Although many would like you to believe it was all the fault of GTA or Manhunt. This is just another aspect of some bodies fear manifesting itself. To rest our children's social ineptitude solely on the shoulders of their extra-curricular activities is clearly, Insane

Enh, not like this will change the talking points from "defenders" of children and family.

We still hear people talking about addiction to porn, and we've known that's not a thing for decades.

a clinical physician that actually blames some of a kid's social problems on bad parenting?

...

he's insane, clearly.