This week, a newsreader appeared to attract the wrath of the gaming world by telling a teenager to ‘go out’ and ‘get some fresh air’.

Thirteen-year-old, Willis Gibson, from Oklahoma, became the first human to beat the original version of the 80s game Tetris –something many thought was impossible.

Willis known as ‘blue scuti’ in the gaming world — made it to what gamers call a ‘kill screen’, a point where the Tetris code glitches, crashing the game.

In 2011, one gamer came close using a technique called ‘hypertapping’, in which a player could rhythmically vibrate their fingers to move the game controller faster than the game’s built-in speed.

But Sky News’ Jayne Secker wasn’t too impressed. She ended a live report about Willis’ success by saying, ‘As a mother, I would just say step away from the screen. Go outside, get some fresh air. Beating Tetris is not a life goal’.

Of course, we had a whole load of folk lining up to criticise her comments as a little ‘dated’ and ‘out of touch’.

Yet, if you think about it, Secker had a point and most of us will understand where she is coming from.

I was never a big video game player but did spend hours at the arcade playing classics such as ‘Double Dragon’ and ‘Street Fighter’. I was ‘addicted’ to Championship Manager for a while but then when things got far too technical I lost interest.

Games did not stop us from wandering the neighbourhoods trying to knock some conkers off a tree or playing football until it was far too dark to see the ball.

I guess as parents we would like our kids to have the childhood we had – devoid of Wi-Fi, phones and most of all games. But it is not like that. I am pretty certain if I had the technology in my day and I would have spent the days cooped up in a room playing the latest games and communicating with my friends digitally.

In the end, video games are programmes and much like most of the stuff we ‘waste’ our time have no actual affect on our lives apart from giving us ‘false’ highs. I could say the same to the people who sit and watch endless amounts of sport and then get annoyed when their team loses. It’s only a game.

The same goes for those who are completely taken in by TV shows and films and are obsessed by celebrities.

Despite that, I do think beating the Tetris game is a big deal and the kid done good. In years to come it may even be used as an example of how a human beat a programme – you never know where we are heading.