Originally Posted by Agrippina

Sorry I am going to be subjective here because I have a very personal very successful story to tell you, and I am proud of it.

I have four sons. When they were very young, for reasons I prefer not to go into I got divorced. I remarried when they were 8 years older. In that time I raised them practically on my own.
My boys have always had a computer with video games on each desk. A tv in every bedroom in the house and one in the family room.
My three older boys were all ADD and the third one had autism just for fun as well. The last one was the quiet one.
We watched tv together, we played video games together. We read together. We ate meals together. I devoted every moment I had to my boys educating them beyond what they were learning at school and allowing them free choice of reading and tv material.
The autistic one went to a 'normal' school at the age of 6. He graduated from high school with his class, when we thought he would never learn to read, because to make it even more interesting he is dyslexic as well. He traveled to America on his own at the age of 20 and at the age of 31 has just been accepted to do his Masters Degree in Education specialising in children with learning difficulties and oh yes is a Dungeons and Dragons grand master and plays world of warcraft non-stop with friends all over the world (well it seems like non-stop to me). The eldest one is the linguist who is working on his doctoral thesis in Philosophy and the second one got married recently, he is a Science and Math teacher. The youngest has a BTech in Interior Design. They still watch tv - have enormous dvd collections, all own their own homes and are the kindest most responsible, decent men I have met.
I still have two computers in my study and a huge dvd collection, I watch tv when I'm not talking to you guys here and with their encouragement am making up the education my religious parents thought was not necessary for a girl, by doing final exams to complete my BA early next year.
As for being out in the fresh air, the eldest didn't play sport because of asthma, the second one rowed all the way through high school and that is part of his teacher's qualification too, the other two were both musicians in their high school's pipe band and the youngest played field hockey. So a pretty over-educated, well-balanced tv addict, video game playing family of which I am very proud.