Is five years old too young to start playing video games?

I know quite a few 4-5 year old kids that play with Leapsters or with other game systems (playstation, wii, etc), but I dont know, I just think that parents should wait as much as they can, or really limiting how much they play, because once they are hooked, they are hooked! My nephew is only 8 and he is severely addicted and has been since he was 5, or even earlier, and thats all he wants to play! I definitely dont want my children like that.

I don't think so,,as long as your cousin feels happy and that game build his imagination, it's good There are many various video games, try to add the right one for him, maybe play with number, draw, etc (education video games) beside that racing games. My cousin love video games too, especially Spider Man,,hehe.. He like to imagine himself as spider man and it makes his drawing and imagination good. He has quiet good english too..

Now a days, kids are starting to play video games and use the internet younger and younger. I don't necessarily think that it is a bad thing, because video games do help with certain skills. It may be a good idea, since he is using the internet anyway, to find some good educational web sites for him to use. There are a lot of free sites out there that are good for kids.

I am a preschool teacher and I teach kiddos who are 4 and 5 years old. I have a handful of children in my class that LOVE playing video games. Problem is, they're TOO into them. That's all they ever talk about. And the can be pretty violent too from time to time. If you ask them where they learned it, they always reply with the name of a video game and start telling you all about it. I think it's ok for a 5 year old to play video games BUT their time needs to be limited. That shouldn't be all they do in an evening or afternoon or whenever it may be.

In my opinion, I think any age is not too young to play video games. However, it's important for him to control how often he plays- it's important not to get him addicted. I think it's fine for any age to start playing video games, as long as they are not addicted to it.