News flash: PlayStation, Nintendo, Xbox and Wii are good for you – well, up to a point. Youngsters who play video games for an hour or less each day tend to be slightly happier and better-adjusted socially than those who don’t touch video games or who regularly play for more than three hours, say psychologists who conducted a study. A majority of those heavy gamers reported more sadness and less satisfaction with their lives overall, says the University of Oxford research published recently in a medical journal.

It's based on British surveys involving 5,000 boys and girls aged 10 to 15. The study team rated these factors: Satisfaction with their lives, how well they got on with other kids, how likely they were to help people in difficulty and levels of hyperactivity or inattention. Although the results suggest benefits from short daily gaming sessions, lead study author Andrew Przbylski says: "The small, positive effects we observed for low levels of play on electronic games do not support the idea that video games on their own can help children develop in an increasingly digital world."

Possible links between video games and behavior are a regular topic of public discussion by educators, parents, politicians and journalists. President Obama has urged research into violent video games as a part of his gun control efforts. The type of game obviously matters. A U.S. study also published during August suggests that video games that promote "acting evil" may distort a teen's sense of right and wrong. Dartmouth College psychologist Jay Hull found that teens who play violent video games are more likely to drive recklessly, such as cutting people off while on the highway. "They might think 'I've done much worse things in these games,' " he says. "They're less likely to find things as being wrong that other people would find wrong." But teens who played aggressive games with noble protagonists – such as Spiderman II -- aren’t as likely to be risk-takers.

U.K. researcher says: "Being engaged in video games may give children a common language. And for someone who is not part of this conversation, this might end up cutting the young person off." -- Andrew Przybylski, University of Oxford psychologist

Parent says: "My [11-year-old] son has online [gaming] friends from Canada, and sometimes in the summer he connects with kids in the U.K. I do find it appealing that they seem to have their own little subculture that crosses ethnic and cultural lines. In that age group they all seem to have the same kind of lingo." -- Nichelle Pace of Sicklerville, N.J.

Virginia professor says: "If a parent is just worried that their kid is playing Grand Theft Auto and not worried about other factors that influence their kids, then they're looking the wrong way." – James Ivory, mass media scholar at Virginia Tech