It seems that the mainstream press is rounding on computer games, this time it is not because of their voilence, but because of their addictive nature.

The Evening Post has even dug up an expert who claims that that allowing a kid under the age of 10 to play a computer game is like giving him a line of coke. We are not sure how he knows the effect of coke, last time we tried it we got bubbles up our nose. Young addicts are skipping meals, playing truant from school and are even stealing money from their parents to buy the latest games, worries the Post.

Alarming figures reveal three out of five under 16-years-old plays video games to such an extent that it is a cause for concern for health care professionals, warns the paper. Four out of five children play computer games at levels showing signs of addiction, figures obtained by addiction experts revealed. The newspaper quoted Steve Pope, a counsellor and therapist who lives in Garstang who claimed that two hours on a “game station” is equivalent to taking a line of cocaine in the high it produces.

However he admits it is not just computer games. He was working with a family where a 74-year-old grandmother is addicted to online poker, her daughter is addicted to eBay and has bought 270 pairs of shoes and her grand-daughter is addicted to Facebook. Pope says he sees at least two children a week who play video games excessively.

But computing gaming has been around since the 1970s. The mainstream press periodically dusts of similar stories. In the 1970's they worried about television addiction. Then it was addiction to Space Invaders and moves were made to clamp down on spacies palours. It is all the same story repeated with a few “experts” and fearful parents dragged in to stand it up. Still summer is expected and there are fewer stories about.