"Our study suggests that playing a certain type of violent video game may have different short-term effects on brain function than playing a nonviolent, but exciting, game... What we showed is there is an increase in emotional arousal. The fight or flight response is activated after playing a violent video game," Mathews said.
No real surprise there, if you ask me.
Mathews said he hopes to conduct additional studies on the long-term effects on brain function of exposure to violent video games.
So what is CNN.com's headline on this story about (rather unsurprising) short-term effects, in which the researcher explicitly makes it clear that the results say nothing about long-term effects? Why, naturally, the headline summarizes the story thusly: "Study: Violent video game effects linger in brain"
Why, yes, that does seem to be precisely the opposite of what the study actually examined, thank you for asking.
In other news, watching a violent but exciting movie has different brain function effects than watching a non-violent, exciting movie, which in turn has different effects from watching a boring movie, or taking a walk, or reading a book, or standing on your head and playing Yahtzee. In other words, different activities produce different brain effects. Can I have a research grant now?
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