Video Games' Addictive Nature Unclear: AMA

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According to the council's report, one soon-to-be-released British study polled 7,000 "gamers" and found that 12 percent of them met World Health Organization criteria for addictive behaviors.

Statistics released in 2005 by the Entertainment Software Association (ESA), an industry group, estimated that 70 percent to 90 percent of American children play video games. The typical gamer is a 30-year-old male who spends about seven or eight hours a week gaming.

According to the authors of the AMA council report, video game overuse is most prevalent among users who play against others online in "massive multi-player online role-playing games."

The council's report defined "heavy game use" as at least two hours a day. But Wasserman, who is a pediatrician, said addictions are best defined by their impact on an individual's life and psyche.

"Basically, you're using a disproportionate amount of time on the video game, and it's what you are thinking about even when you're not on the video game," he said. "And even though it's having negative consequences for you in school or your family situation, or it's taking a disproportionate amount of your money, you still continue to do it. You spend less time with your friends or in other social things."

One theory why certain individuals spend so much time on online games is that they prefer the experience to real-world interaction.

According to the report's authors, the "current theory is that these individuals achieve more control of their social relationships and more success in social relationships in the virtual reality realm than in real relationships."

But that sense of control may come at a price, Wasserman said, especially for children and adults obsessed with games loaded with violent imagery.

"The violent aspects of this, in particular, have got to be a threat to the normal growth and development that we'd like to see in young people," he said. "People have observed more aggressive behaviors [linked to gaming], and if you do subjective testing, there are studies which have shown aggressive behaviors in young people and less supportive behaviors."