Anti (?)- (or) Social?

Is spending excessive amounts of time in a virtual world created by a video game, completely cut off from all types of physical interaction with other people, to be considered social or anti-social behaviour?

If this question was asked 20 to 30 years ago, or even as recent as 10 years ago, then I would imagine the answer would be overwhelmingly anti-social. The question asked today would present a range of different answers. A lot of people, myself included, would be in the grey area of undecided or “it depends”. For me it depends on my perception of what the gamer is doing, and this has changed over time for me. If I was to describe the behaviour of a gamer at a purely physical and observational level I could generalise it as someone who sits at their computer for hours on end by them self every day playing a computer game. They seldom choose to meet new people or socialise with their existing friends over playing the computer game. When you look deeper into what the gamer is experiencing and what kind of interactions are taking place within an online world, the behaviour will become less anti-social, and even can be considered social behaviour. The generalisation can be countered in the ways I describe below which reflect my own changing of opinion on the matter:

1. A gamer sits at their computer for hours by themselves. Even though you may be the only person physically sitting in the room, you are not necessarily by yourself. At any one time there can be thousands of people also playing the game, experiencing the same world as you and in some cases interacting with you personally within this world.

2. A gamer will seldom choose to meet new people or socialise with their existing friends over playing the game. Some online games require a high level of interaction so it is a natural way to meet people. These friendships may or may not extend to being real life friendships and many can be long lasting. A lot of people play games online with their existing friends as another way to “hang out”.