Videogames preventing violence?

I recently came across this article: http://www.gamepolitics.com/2010/01/28/islamist-group-somalia-bans-video-games

The article talks about how authorities in Somalia have recently banned videogames because they "are designed in such a way that they destroy our social traditions".

One 19 year old man from the area said "We used to watch movies. They were banned. Now the PlayStations we had fun with are also banned. This country is not for young people like me,"

Somalia is a very poor country in the horn of Africa. In recent years piracy has increased off the horn of Africa and in the Gulf of Aden, a busy shipping lane linking the Mediterranean and Indian Oceans.

One possible explanation for this is that groups of young Somali men, having nothing to do and little or no money, with no competent police force or Navy to stop them, are forming bands of pirates in coastal villiages.

Where videogames would have kept scores of youths occupied previously, they are now idle - leaving them open to be recruited into pirate gangs.

This is perhaps the flip-side to videogame violence and addiction. Instead of videogames making youths more violent and recluse, in this case they were keeping youths from violence and antisocial behaviour.

Ethan R