Gaming fun and good for you

OMGr0x0r!! It seems that gamers aren't the antisocial malcontents that the media so often likes to paint them. Professor Talmadge Wright and colleagues at Loyola University, Chicago, have been studying Counter Strike culture, and have discovered that it's, amazingly enough, okay to shoot stuff.
Not only that, the social fun and humour of the game was not lost on them. "It gives people an option of actively participating in some kind of fantasy role they could not do in real life that allows them to play with their own feelings," said Prof Wright, pointing out that these online communities both build good teamwork and freindships while allowing people to blow off steam and relax. The study also notes that other researchers are often clouded by the idea that "mindless activity" has no place in a world that demands visable productivity.