Video games are once again being blamed, not for another mass school shooting in the States, but something much more closer to home.
According to Britain's biggest selling daily tabloid, The Sun, games are to blame for England's plummet down the ranking of children's illiteracy. In the latest survey we've fallen from third to fifteenth. That's probably on a par with the England football team.
But let's put it into perspective shall we. It's not good if England, the home of Shakespeare, is failing its children. But what are the parents doing? Surely they are the ones to blame if they decide to put their kids in front of an Xbox for a few hours each day and then wonder why their reports are poor.
Yes, games are there as a hobby, but there are plenty of other pastimes that I'm sure they're doing that doesn't involve sitting on the sofa reading the latest Harry Potter or Phillip Pullman. Mobiles, the internet, iPods - there's a whole load of entertainment that kids fill there time with these days. Hanging this poor showing on the hook marked 'Games', unless the research shows this, just seems to me to be a cop-out. Is this just an easy way to blame the games industry yet again when titles like Brain Training and Wii Sports are trying to broaden childrens' minds and get the family involved in a fun pastime everyone can enjoy?