The Ills of Computer Games

Computer games have been blamed for everything from teen violence to declining standards of education for some time now in Western society. I was talking to a guy the other day who basically said that the village's social cohesion had suffered because kids no longer played amongst the olive trees together (as they did when he was a boy), but instead played computer games (indoors) all the time. I've no way of knowing whether this is true or not, but what I found interesting is that the same sorts of 'anti-social' discourses that surround computer games in the West have managed to travel here along with the actual computers themselves. I know that studies done in Britain and America have found that many kids spend lots of time on the computer chatting with friends, and sending emails, and that in fact computers have allowed for a new form of sociality, or a new medium for social encounter. I also see kids playing at the club, at the pool and most frequently in the street together. It would be interesting to really look at this issue in depth, but I don't think I'll have the time. (Plus it would be something of a tangent from what I'm doing).
If anyone ever gets round to doing a study or finds one, do let me know.