If you're gonna complain about gaming. Then typing on this site is also a waste of time. TV is a waste of time. Basically, anything short of getting food, doing stuff for your profession, and other required things, for life. Is a waste of time. Because you're basically saying fun things are bad for you. That's only fact. If you make it ruin your life.

Gaming doesn't have to be productive because it all about having fun, but it should be in moderation. I know some who game way too much, with little to no exercise.

While i game, my non gamers friends see loads more tv than me. Most of the time i feel that seeing tv does more harm than gaming. I think many people waste more time talking on the Internet about games than actually playing them so that adds up to alot of time on this subject but there are hundreds of things worse than gaming that millions on others do and while I'm gaming I'm not doing none of that.

That's completely true, I spend too much time here on VGChartz, I haven't played a game in at least a month now.

Nope. I'm in med school, and every guy that I am friends with is into gaming. Some girls, too. And we are all great students and doing very well. ANything can become a bad habit. It is due to the individual person's personality and habits, not the form of entertainment. 

No. As long as it doesn't turn into an addiction (if it does, then it actually can).

The thing is that at the end of the day it's all about entertainment and what a certain somebody finds joy in spending their free time with. Some people do it with watching television or movies, some read books, and a lot of other things.

If it's providing entertainment and fun to that person, it doesn't matter if it's seen as unproductive to someone else.

If there was no such thing as different mediums of entertainment in the world or just any type of entertainment in general we would all be bored. That's why everyone is unique and finds different ways they enjoy spending their time with.

I will say though that, as with everything, spending too much time doing it can't be good though.

Some people take gaming too far imo. I know somebody who will just play games all day long. I like games but I can't play them for even 4 continuous hours. When university and life in general show up it's impossible for me to spend a lot of time on games which is good. I play in moderation when I can. There are just a whole lot of things I could be doing like making dat cash over playing games for extended amounts of time.

That sounds like a personal problem, to be honest.

Everything in moderation.

If someone is spending ALL their free time playing games, racking up hundreds of hours, while blowing off other social events or outside interests, yeah its an issue.

Ive started not playing games as much because I realized that I wasn't being a productive person (as you said in the OP). Ive replaced it with trying to make games (dabbling in programming), reading, drawing, going for walks, etc. I probably spend ~4 hours a week playing games now.