The Economist had an article on the social impact of video games titled Chasing the Dream. Its been posted elsewhere on the net before me, but I have to quote this one paragraph because its so good.

Another analogy can be made between games and music—specifically, with the emergence of rock and roll in the 1950s. Like games today, it was a new art form that was condemned for encouraging bad behaviour among young people. Some records were banned from the radio, and others had their lyrics changed. Politicians called for laws banning the sending of offending records by post. But now the post-war generation has grown up, rock and roll is considered to be harmless. Rap music, or gaming, is under attack instead. “There’s always this pattern,” says Mr Williams of the University of Illinois. “Old stuff is respected, and new stuff is junk.” Novels, he points out, were once considered too lowbrow to be studied at university. Eventually the professors who believed this retired. Novels are now regarded as literature. “Once a generation has its perception, it is pretty much set,” says Mr Williams. “What happens is that they die.”

The article also goes on to mention the book Everything Bad Is Good For You and quotes the author Steven Berlin Johnson. My point in mentioning this is just to give a shout out to that book. It was an excellent read and made me look at a few things differently, including my television watching and how I interact with video games and the ones I really enjoy playing. Unfortunately, its been two months so I read it, so I can’t point out more specifics. GO READ IT!