Violent video games numb players to real violence

Interesting article from Arstechnica:

Researchers at Iowa State argue that "the modern entertainment media landscape could accurately be described as an effective systematic violence desensitization tool. Whether modern societies want this to continue is largely a public policy question, not an exclusively scientific one."

257 students were given video games to play for 20 minutes. Half of the games were nonviolent, while the other half were violent though not especially recent (Duke Nukem, Mortal Kombat, Future Cop, and Carmageddon). After playing the games, all students watched a 10 minute video clip of real violence (i.e., not reenactments) that featured prison stabbings, shootings, and more. Researchers measured the students' heart rate and galvanic skin response before, during, and after gameplay. Those who played the violent video games were more pumped up during gameplay than while viewing the video. The opposite was true for the non-violent gamers.