For instance, study lead Prof. Laura Walker found that regular gamers are 10 percent more likely to drink alcohol and partake in drug use than those who rarely played games.
The study also said people who play games every day are three times as likely to use marijuana.
"The most striking part is that everything we found clustered around videogame use is negative," she said in a report in the Telegraph.
According to the study of 800 university students, 55 percent of men said they played games regularly, while 7 percent of women said they were gamers.
Among that small slice of female gamers, the study found that they had a lower self-esteem than other women. Self-esteem amongst male gamers is apparently unaffected.
The research also found gamers experience a "modest" deterioration of quality of relationships with friends and parents.
Walker said, "It may be that young adults remove themselves from important social settings to play videogames, or that people who already struggle with relationships are trying to find other ways to spend their time. My guess is that it's some of both and becomes circular."
The student co-author on the study, Alex Jensen, was reportedly "disappointed at his own findings," according to a BYU press release. The co-author hopes future studies of multiplayer games and consoles will exonerate gamers.
The statement also depicted Walker as a professor who is not blindly out to get videogames. "For the record, Walker did not stand in the way of her family’s wish for a Nintendo Wii. Jensen had hoped to find some positive results as justification for playing Madden NFL."
Update: Added comments from BYU's website. Image from Comedy Central's South Park.