There is a lot of controversy surrounding video games. They are certainly a different breed than they were in the years of Atari or Nintendo 64. There are few adolescents I meet that aren’t playing video games and parents at times like to pick my brain regarding the impact on mental health.
I think this is a great article that doesn’t just focus on correlation studies (as so many do), but asks bigger questions, like why are video games so appealing? What needs are being met by this? How are these needs not being met in the real world?
Other questions to ask related to video gaming is the time allotment, time spent engaging in physical activity, themes of the game, why is it rated at that age/maturity level, and are they playing on line (a whole different beast of video gaming in my opinion). I always encourage parents to do their own research and read about the video games their child is begging them for, commonsensemedia.org is one of many great resources for this.
Oak Tree Therapy 