We'll probably be reading about this in the news

Here is a new University of Michigan press release about violent video games and people's reaction to violent images. Based on this document, their main conclusion is that there is less of a brain-wave response to violent images for people who have played such games. The press release doesn't give any specifics about the subjects (precisely how much exposure, etc.), and I fully expect that the media is going to take this and run with it and give their usual annoying 'games are evil' diatribe. (You know, we really don't see enough of Jack Thompson in the news.) The "reaction-time test" reminds me just a tiny bit of something that psychologist Stanley Milgram did in his very controversial experiments on obedience to authority.

Anyway, I'm not surprised by the conclusions of the study, but I can already see the media blowing them out of proportion. (The press release already starts that job. The title is a bit more extreme than the contents---not that that's surprising or anything.)