Print this out and calmly hand a copy to anyone who tries to tell you that games have a negative impact on society, based on an article in the tabloid press, or something a publicity-hungry MP said on GMTV. Henry Jenkins is co-founder of the MIT Comparative Media Studies Program and a long-time gamer - in this excellent essay he debunks some of the key myths about videogame culture - that there's a proven link between violent games and real-life violence, that games are anti-social, that games are not a 'meaningful form of expression'. A lot of this is familiar stuff, but Jenkins has the stats, the academic overview and the ability to condense complex arguments into a few short paragraphs.

My favourite point, is the one about emotional identification:

[Games] allow players to navigate an expansive and open-ended world, make their own choices and witness their consequences. The Sims designer Will Wright argues that games are perhaps the only medium that allows us to experience guilt over the actions of fictional characters. In a movie, one can always pull back and condemn the character or the artist when they cross certain social boundaries. But in playing a game, we choose what happens to the characters. In the right circumstances, we can be encouraged to examine our own values by seeing how we behave within virtual space.

It's true. If you think about it, since the dawn of Greek drama, narrative spectacles have sought to elicit catharsis - the purging of emotion through vicarious suffering. In other words, we feel better because it's not us up there making those horrible decisions and doing those terrible things. Although we can identify with the emotions, we don't experience the consequences.

But in games, there's no fourth wall of impenetrable narrative. If Tommy Vercetti murders thirty people on the streets of Vice City - we're not helplessly watching that happen, we're doing it ourselves. Morally, the safety net is removed.

Anyway, there's plenty more to ponder in Jenkins' piece.