The headline says it all, though the recanting of video game addiction specialist Keith Bakker comes with qualifiers:

“…the more we work with these kids the less I believe we can call this addiction. What many of these kids need is their parents and their school teachers – this is a social problem.”
…
“This gaming problem is a result of the society we live in today,” Mr Bakker told BBC News. “Eighty per cent of the young people we see have been bullied at school and feel isolated. Many of the symptoms they have can be solved by going back to good old fashioned communication.”

It’s easy (and very tempting) to fall back on sarcasm here, but let’s just be thankful he’s learned something and will now stop putting loner kids through some sort of twelve-step program.

Incidentally, Bakker’s findings concur with those of the National Institute of Media and the Family, which for the first year ever has used its annual MEDIAwise ‘video games score-card’ to praise the gaming industry rather than excoriate it. Times are a-changin’. [image by William Hook]