The cliche of the lone male gamer needs to be destroyed

Psychologist Philip Zimbardo suggests that boys are increasingly withdrawing into the lonely world of gaming. But this is an outdated view of the medium

• Psychologist Philip Zimbardo: 'Boys risk becoming addicted to porn, video games and Ritalin'

"The new video-game world encourages doing and acting and not really thinking. Video games are not so attractive to girls."

The American psychologist Philip Zimbardo has a new book out. It is called Man (Dis)connected: How Technology Has Sabotaged What It Means To Be Male. In Saturday's Guardian, he spoke to Stuart Jeffries about his fears for young men who - he asserts - are increasingly withdrawing from real life and from sexual relationships with women, into an online world of games and pornography. "This thing with boys is really getting me down because I can't think of a solution that is easy to entrain, that's easy to realise," he said. "It's painful for me because I'm an optimistic person. Boys are in a mess."

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