New Literacy?

I was browsing through Twitter this morning and followed the link on Tamara Van Horne's (@tamaravh) tweet to an article discussing whether gaming is teaching kids a new literacy. As a gamer and the mom of 2 gamers I've never had the negative view of video gaming that many others have. The article by Dakshana Bascaramurty on the Globe and Mail blog is a great introduction to this topic for the average parent. For me however, it highlights something that I have yet to see addressed.
Society has changed, we are more urban, more technologically connected than ever before. People in general are outside less, and interacting with nature less. Most times when kids are outside they're being shuttled to and from different locations/activities. They do NOT have the freedom that their parents/grandparents had, to roam their neighbourhoods, to explore their environments in an interest-lead way (to borrow some current eduspeak), to get dirty and to have fun.
Modern gaming, whether online, on computers, consoles or handhelds, allow people that freedom. People have a NEED to explore, get dirty and have fun. Modern life makes it next to impossible to do these things in the way of previous generations. This is just a new way to do it. So to me modern gaming isn't teaching kids a new literacy, it's just giving them a different way to learn, from that used by previous generations.