No. The person playing the game is to blame for being an under-achiever if they are one.

Video games can potentially encourage laziness and distract you from reality and they very often do but they do not inherently have this effect.

They are like Jedi mind tricks, Video Games only work on the weak minded.

I do, think video games contribute some to the underachievement of boys, but they are largely an effect of a cultural ambivalence regarding masculinity, and in some cases an active hostility toward maleness. As a result of this ambivalence and hostility, many guys retreat into more or less solitary (and thus judgment-proof) activities of video games. Certainly this may decrease their rates of completing homework or doing other useful activities that would otherwise contribute toward their success.

A more pervasive set of factors for boys' underachievement is that Western culture has developed an ambivalence regarding masculinity, and in some cases an active hostility toward traditional maleness.

Where we see this ambivalence/hostility impact boys particularly and directly is in the public schools and the cultural environment that surrounds education and child-rearing.

One of the main factors contributing to boys lagging behind girls in US public schools and universities is that the school environment has been undergoing a pointed revision that, intentionally or not, favors the achievement of girls, and handicaps boys.

Over the course of the last 25 years, there has been an explicit and concerted effort to make the following changes in schools.

- 1 - The pathologizing of natural boy behaviors.

-- Rough and tumble play and general rowdiness

-- Competitiveness

-- Liking/playing with toy weapons (guns, swords, catapults, etc.)

-- Physical dominance behaviors like minor fighting (pushing, shoving, etc.)

This is a touchstone with the video game "problem". Most video games include all of these activities in a virtual environment. The reason males tend toward these is that it is among the last places where they can engage in these aspects of maleness without being condemned as dangerous, psychopathic, or predatory.

This pathologizing of boys' proto-masculinity has not only made school environments less comfortable for boys, but it has led to the second factor.

- 2 - There is a concerted effort to socialize boys to be more like girls, often including the subtext that boys' natural tendencies toward rough and tumble play ("aggressiveness") and competitiveness are negative things. This includes both incidental and intentional efforts to combat the natural tendency of boys is toward much more physically active and more competitive behavior.

-- Reduction (and in some cases elimination) of free-play recess time.

-- Increase in class duration and required in-seat instruction time.

-- Increase in use of suspension and zero-tolerance policies for behavior that is more prevalent in boys, (e.g., boisterous and "disruptive" behavior, fighting, etc..) This particularly causes loss of boys' learning opportunities.

- 3 - There is a concerted effort to increase programs oriented to increasing girls' preparation and participation in college, which has included a corresponding decrease in funding and programs accessible to boys, despite the fact that in many cases the decrease in access for boys is unnecessary.

-- Diversion of funds toward programs specifically for girls' preparation and orientation toward STEM fields, instead of making all of these programs co-ed.

-- Decrease in activity-based vocational technical training (e.g., shop classes in auto mechanics, woodworking, metal working, construction, etc.) which capitalizes on both the tendencies of boys to be more physically active, and to have brains that are more thing-oriented.

-- Lack of Take Your Son to Work Day, but efforts to make Take Your Daughter to Work Day as a pervasive school activity.

-- Lack of male-only scholarships and college funding, and common female only scholarships. This puts boys at a disadvantage in finding college funding.

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Christina Hoff Sommers addresses this achievement gap particularly well in any of several YouTube videos regarding the so-called "War on Boys." Her foundation in "second wave" feminism keeps her from going off into the MGTOW-oriented whining.

I have yet to see any evidence that video games can cause underachievement, much less have - though certainly, spending too much of one's time involved with anything non-productive can steal from real-world achievement. Video games can be addictive, and if allowed, use up far too much time, but any number of things can and have done that.

Boys - and by that, I assume children - need to have focus on school, etc - and it doesn't often come naturally. It's up to parents, primarily and teachers, secondarily, to create that focus.

Nonsense. There are plenty of jocks and A students who play lots of video games, too.

So let me explain it a different way. If you're an outcast, or not good at much, or simply shy and antisocial, then you have to pass the time somehow, and one way is with video games. Before video games existed it may have been via board games or some other indoor activity. Now it's video games.

The games don't cause under-achievement, they are merely a way for underachivers to vent. But even that doesn't account for all of it, because there are plenty of successful young people who play them, too.

Bad parenting is. Are video games a contributing factor? Probably, when they're parked in front of the screen all day so the parents don't have to give a shit. And who gave them the game system in the first place?

Why boys?

Video games are not to blame for under achievement, It's the lack of responsibility in the boys, and the lack of parenting that cause the pattern of laziness. Video games are good In moderation.

Do I think they are addictive?:

Of course companies make their games addictive so that you will keep returning and buy more or play more.

But! It is not the games fault it is the households fault.

Pretty sure boys are to blame for boys' underachievement.

I am sure that in certain cases with certain boys, video games are to be blamed. For the most part though, I think there are many more factors than this in boy's average grades being lower, or less boys going to university etc. Other factors could include, but are not limited to, the education system being more friendly to girls, boys being easier to distract in general, be it through gaming or other things, or maybe that girls simply do better than boys because of the way girls are. I have not seen evidence correlating video games to worse grades, I would be glad to analyse any statistical evidence one of you provides.

If video games are found to be a culprit, and parents see this so prevent their kids from playing video games, I suspect something would quickly replace them as a distraction for boys.

Also, why not just say girls over achieve rather than that boys under achieve? I guess it's a glass half empty or half full kind of thing.

P.S, I know there are specific cases where addiction to video games causes grades to fall, but these are in the minority, and apply to many more things than just games.