Associated with. So it's probably just that, a correlation.

Both can be true

Let me air out two unrelated but similar things that annoyed the shit out of me back in the day.

Your parents then: "That floor mat thingy (referring to the Power Pad) doesn't count as exercise because it's still Nintendo. You need to go outside!!!!!"

Adults now: Middle school phys-ed classes consisting of playing Dance Dance Revolution apparently somehow now "counts" as real exercise.

And,

Your parents then: "The problem with you kids is you spend all day in front of that tube, watching those stupid movies and playing video games all day instead of reading books. It's stunting your ability to differentiate fantasy from reality!!!!!"

Your parents now: Instantly believe every damn fool thing they see on Facebook, even and especially when it is clearly horseshit.

So yeah. I can totally believe that some moron would unironically believe that staring at a screen containing an office application is somehow automatically more "wholesome" than staring at a screen displaying any other content for the same amount of time.

I used to pull 12hour sessions on everquest and suffered none of that

To me it depends on how hard you work and game, and by that I just mean how you posture yourself over a keyboard and how actively/frantically you interface with a computer.

My posture is shit despite spending up to 14 hours a day in front of a computer. It's still ways better than that of someone who hunches over their keyboard staring dead at their big ass monitor with their fingers locked in over the QE+WASD button group as they zone in to get that "flick" response time.

Meanwhile, my shitty posture is just lounging or reclining in my ergo chair as I swivel my neck to look at any of my three eye-level monitors. I shift around a lot and my hands aren't near the keyboard unless I'm actively typing. I crack my neck and roll my shoulders often, sometimes stretch or go take a 15-minute walk. I only use dark themes and always have proper ambient lighting to prevent concentrated light exposure fucking up my eyesight.

I have been keeping this technophiliac routine going for about 5 years now. Depression, Severe General Anxiety/Paranoia, Alcoholism, Substance Abuse (weed), Over-eating, Serial Dating and unexplained bouts of mania were all problems I had to deal with during those five years. Some of them may have been amplified by this routine computer use but certainly not caused by it, I've identified the true causes for almost all of them and, aside from depression, they have nothing to do with sitting in front of screens all day.

There are much bigger issues associated with computer use and the media's failure to report on them speaks volumes. Stop attacking the video games that aren't predatory (keep going after the ones that are) and start really really taking a look at the effects of social media. Social media will destroy society long before video games get a chance to.

I stand by this statement, to the grave: Death to Social Media.