Is Gaming Good for Kids?

Remember the TV campaign a few years back that asked the question…”its four o’clock, do you know where your kids are”? Today that question may have a more predictable answer. They are probably ‘video-gaming’.

New research from the Pew Internet and American life project found that while America’s youth does not all play the same games, nearly all of them— girls included—play video games of one kind or another. A broad survey found 99 percent of boys and 94 percent of girls are ‘gamers’.

And they play often! When surveyed, half the respondents said they had played a video game the previous day. According to researchers there is little difference in the percentages among various racial and ethnic groups and incomes. Nearly two-thirds play video games to socialize face-to-face with friends and family; while just over a quarter said they play with internet friends.

Pew researchers emphasized that the research steered completely clear of trying to depict video games as "good" or "bad." Still, I can’t help but think gamers might be a lot healthier if some of those games were the outside kind. You know, on a baseball or football field. You breathe a lot of fresh air. And you exercise your whole body, not just your fingers and hands.

(Brian Banmiller is a national Business Correspondent for CBS News Radio, free lance writer and public speaker. The former television business news anchor in San Francisco can be reached at brian@banmilleronbusiness.com .)