It’s time to come clean with a rather embarrassing admission: I’m a recovering Luddite.

For years, I panned video games as electronic versions of Satan’s spawn, blaming them for turning goggle-eyed children into roly-poly zombies, and reproaching parents for using them as pixelated baby sitters.

Then I got one myself.

If your knee-jerk reaction to the whined Christmas refrain of “Game Boy, please” is “Hell no” or “Read a book” – as ours was – think again. These aren’t your 1980s roller-rink video games.

In my case, it all started innocently enough. My husband brought home a small box back in March. “Open it!” he urged, bursting with excitement.

I pulled out an oblong flat gizmo with a screen. “What’s this?” I inquired suspiciously.

“A PSP!” he crowed. “You can play games and watch movies on it. I thought you’d like to have one.”

“You mean, you thought you’d like to have one.”

Aha! I knew this drill: Buy your spouse a gift – in this case, a Sony PlayStation Portable – you desperately crave, but that he/she won’t use. Then scoop it, all the while garnering kudos for thoughtfulness. I knew he couldn’t wait to get his flippers on the thing.

So I showed him.

I pawed through mounds of sci-fi and sports games at the local store, and finally found something campy and fun: “Ape Escape,” where the player travels through time, captures an army of evil sock monkeys and sends them back to the future. (Don’t fret, PETA: No evil sock monkeys are harmed in the course of this game.)

Then, after letting the gadget lie tantalizingly in its box for two days, I began, tentatively, to push a few buttons.

At first, I couldn’t believe I was actually playing it. Then I couldn’t believe I was actually enjoying it. And thinking. Hard. And observing, reasoning and solving problems.

And getting stumped. At times, my brain has ached trying to best this thing.

Parents, forget all you think you know about video games, even ones with sock monkeys.

They’re nowhere near as mindless as social demagogues would have you believe. In fact, they hook players on cracking complex problems and reward them for doing so.

What used to be the domain of shaggy male teens is now mass-market entertainment. Video games are becoming the board games of the new millennium. An older lady in my neighborhood walks her dog and plays her Game Boy, practicing for grandchildren’s visits. An ad exec friend plays video games after work to blow off steam. My in-laws often play them together after dinner.

Newfangled entertainment – from novels to rock-and-roll to Donkey Kong – is invariably tagged as the ruination of society. None other than Sen. Hillary Clinton once accused video games of “stealing the innocence of our children.”

Sure, some games, like some movies, are violent. But just as you wouldn’t buy your child a ticket to an NC-17 flick, don’t buy him “Grand Theft Auto.” Some things are for adults only.

If you believe the buzz that “video games make children more violent,” consider this: The first long-term study on that topic was conducted this year. The results? Game players showed no more aggressiveness than the control group, according to The Economist. And violent crime in America has actually fallen as the use of video games has risen.

Of course, too much of anything isn’t good. That’s why parents set limits. But video game time, like TV time, can be a great motivator for prodding kids to finish homework or chores.

In nine months, this recovering Luddite still hasn’t caught all the critters in “Ape Escape.” But I’m branching out, eagerly awaiting January’s release of “The Godfather” game, so I can make him an offer he can’t refuse.

– Bronwyn Lance Chester is a columnist for The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk. Her e-mail address is bronwyn.chester@pilotonline.com.