My 13-year-old son plays a lot of video games but while he has a game going on the PS3 he is usually playing Youtube videos (a lot of them are educational in some way) or reading news or Wikipedia on his computer which is next to the PS3. He says he gets bored doing just one thing. When he had to do a lot of writing last year he would think of something to write, play a game for a while, write some more, then go back to games and he managed to get his work done in time, but it was last minute. I think he will probably continue to do this in college.
His highly gifted adult half brother played a lot of video games and dropped out of college so this does worry me a little. My stepson wishes he could afford to go back to school because he can't find a job using the excellent IT skills he has without a degree. My son hopefully will decide to work harder in college than his brother did.
My son wants to live in a big city like his sister does with lots of things to do. He is tired of living in a small town where he doesn't fit in. Hopefully that will be enough motivation for him to put away the video games when he needs to.
His sister didn't play video games at all but she didn't finish college--yet. She wants to go back. I think her social life was more distracting than video games, but she got a job in sales and marketing by making a higher score on a test than most of the college graduates applying for the job and by knowing the right people. Her excellent people skills learned while she was doing all that socializing turned out to be an asset on her job.
It seems like all the video game players I know socialize more online and I don't think they are able to develop that network of friends that can help them find jobs after college. I would love for my son to have all the friends that my daughter has. She just has so much fun in life. But then he would argue that he enjoys life (except for chronic pain issues) just as much as his sister does by playing video games.
