The goal of this study was to learn about college students' use of video, computer and online games, and to determine the impact of that use on their everyday life. To meet those goals the researchers used three approaches. First, surveys were randomly distributed to college students at a wide range of two-year and four-year public and private colleges and universities in the continental United States. Students from 27 colleges and universities participated and the surveys were collected between March 2002 and June 2002, and September 2002 and October 2002. This sample was intended to produce results that would correspond to the demographics for all U.S. college students as reported in The Chronicle of Higher Education's annual almanac issue. The sample was tested against known population parameters (gender, race, age) and found to be reflective of the national population of college students. In all, 1,162 surveys were returned. For results based on the total sample, one can say with 95%, confidence that the error attributable to sampling and other random effects is plus or minus 3 percentage points. This study focused on traditional college students, ones who are seeking a college degree and who devote much or all of their time to their studies.