RALEIGH – Longtime “Daily Journal” readers know that I have a weakness for compelling, well-designed electronic amusements.

Also, being an optimistic guy at heart, I tend to resist the temptation to join in every round of popular hand-wringing about the latest trend, fad, or kid craze. Young people are usually less gullible and more resilient than grown-ups think. That’s not to say kids don’t do dumb things – mine do sometimes, and I did perhaps more often than sometimes – but predicting the end of Western civilization every time fashions change or new technologies arrive is unwarranted. In the long run, it also usually embarrassing (e.g. “Myrtle, that gyrating Elvis fella is going to be the ruin of us all, you mark my words!”)

Admittedly, then, I was predisposed to greet the latest study from the Pew Internet & American Life Project with eagerness and credulity. It concluded that, contrary to popular belief, the prevalence of video and computer gaming among American youth today is not creating a nation of angry loners. Most kids spend a lot of time with their friends playing online or on consoles. And there appears to be little evidence that gamers are less socially, academically, or politically engaged than non-gamers.

I would add that it is unlikely today’s gamers are stunting their physical or intellectual growth nearly as much as previous generations of American kids did by whiling away the hours watching “Saved By The Bell” or “Gilligan’s Island” reruns.

Online gaming, in particular, is a phenomenon that bears little resemblance to the fevered imaginings of professional worrywarts. It is highly interactive and can teach some valuable leadership and social skills. As to the content of video and computer games, the popular impression that gore, sex, and criminality dominate the medium is simply uninformed. Of the top 10 bestselling video-games series in history, only two – Final Fantasy and Grand Theft Auto – could be construed as fitting the stereotype. More typical are cartoonish action-adventure games such as Mario Brothers (200 million sold) and Pokemon (164 million), entirely non-violent games such as The Sims (90 million) and Tetris (70 million), and sports games such as FIFA (65 million) and Madden’s NFL (60 million).

Nor should the apparent resemblance of, say, combat-based online role-playing games and violent TV programming be mistaken as evidence that the two are likely to have similar effects on average consumers. Much of the time gamers expend online is devoted to social interaction, building teams, training new players, trading in markets, reading background material, and building or experiencing player-created content. The experience is markedly different from what children did a generation ago, sitting passively in front of a television watching cartoon characters slug each other or action heroes performing impossible feats of gratuitous violence.

I’d explain myself further, but I fear that the effort would take away valuable gaming time from my sons and myself. Back next week, unless certain pesky villains escape their confinement …

Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.