The Perils and Pleasures of Online Gaming for Married Life

If someone asked you to sketch a portrait of a gamer who spends countless hours each week inhabiting an avatar—say, an elf or a warlock—in a virtual fantasy world, what kind of person would you draw? A teenage boy whose pimply forehead hovers mere centimeters from the computer screen?

Michelle Ahlstrom and Neil Lundberg of Brigham Young University and their colleagues decided to study married gamers. Does devoting so much time to online games change how couples feel about married life? The answer is Yes—sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/...-married-life/