Kids Help Phone, a Canadian counseling service for youths, has released results of a survey it conducted into online gaming habits.

Entitled Online Gaming: Child’s Play or Obsession, the survey collected data from 2,793 respondents, of whom 63% were aged 14 years or younger and 64% were female. 59% percent of those polled indicated that online gaming gets in the way of their school work, while 47% indicated that their parents do not, or may not know what games they are playing online.

The study noted that respondents from Northern Territories (the Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut) spent more time gaming online and were more likely to be unable to quit gaming on their own versus youths from the rest of Canada. Why? According to one respondent from the region, “Cause [kids] don’t have anything else to do.”

The report includes advice aimed at both parents and gamers themselves to assist in responsible gaming, including putting the family’s computer in a central location of the house for monitoring purposes and encouraging parents get their kids to stop playing online games at least a half an hour before bed.

The report also notes some benefits of gaming:

Despite some negative press in recent years, online gaming does offer young people benefits, such as improving memory, building knowledge, developing better eye-hand coordination, etc. It also offers youth who are isolated (either geographically or socially) a quick and, to an extent, safe way to connect with others.

The full 44-page report (PDF) can be downloaded here.