Man, there's some backwards buggers in this thread. Personally, I am one of those video game kids, from pretty much age 4, and my parents rarely restricted my access to any media. I played the violent games and the non-violent ones - whatever I enjoyed, essentially. And how violent, dangerous or otherwise warped did it make me? I got great grades, I never hurt a fly, and I have no criminal record whatsoever. Oooh, the horror.
"You have a degree??"
"I'm sorry! Unreal Tournament made me do it!"
OK, look: if violent video games make violent people, and you all like to call out GTA without actually having played it (as if GTA were anywhere near being the most violent game out there), and GTA is now the fastest selling entertainment product ever, shouldn't the whole of society have just broken down? Shouldn't there be a global prostitute shortage as they're all beaten to death by 11 year olds? It's your posit that if I do it in a video game, I will then do it in real life, so explain then why violent crime figures continue to decline as the popularity of GTA continues to rise.
It's horseshit. I've done some incredibly nasty things inside games, but funnily enough my brain is capable of spotting the difference between pixels and people. My addiction to Civilization didn't make me a general, my love of Time Crisis hasn't made me into a gun-toting murderer, and I can absolutely promise you that Uplink does not teach valid hacking skills. Don't be a moron.