Could an "obsessive" interest in violent computer games have been the decisive factor in submariner Ryan Donovan's murderous attack on his colleagues, as was suggested last week? Rather than being mentally unstable, drunk and placed in charge of a machine gun while living in a submarine? Does playing Grand Theft Auto make you want to kill, and kill, and kill again?

If you read a certain section of the press, the answers would be "Yes", "Yes" and "Whee, doggie! Hand me down my bazooka!" To certain papers, it was manna to learn that academics have published a study describing what its authors call Games Transfer Phenomena. The study, by academics at Nottingham Trent and Stockholm universities, has found anecdotal evidence that games linger in the mind.

It's pretty preliminary – 42 gamers between the ages of 15 and 21 were interviewed – but they did say some funny stuff. "After completing Prince of Persia: Sands of Time, when I accidentally dropped a sandwich with the butter side down, I instinctively reached for the R2 button," reported one subject. Another said he'd found himself wishing he had a gravity gun, so he could get a drink from the fridge without leaving his chair. One – bless him – said he liked to bake cakes mentioned in World of Warcraft.

Many of us will recognise this. After spending hours playing Tetris, you wander blinking outside and speculate that one of those L-shaped blocks would fit nicely into the downtown skyline. Or, after too long playing The Sims, you find yourself wondering whether replacing the bathroom door with a wall while your little brother's in there would be a laugh.

Of course experiences in video games transfer into real life. Other cultural forms do, too. You leave King Lear and feel sad and exhilarated. A Bridget Riley show makes your eyes go funny. You read Karl Marx and start plotting the overthrow of capitalism. You read the tabloids and feel angry and afraid.

Duly, then, out of these sandwich-droppers and Warcraft nerds, reporters have created a group of dangerously unhinged submariners-in-the-making. The Daily Mail reported: "How video games blur real-life boundaries and prompt thoughts of violent solutions to players' problems." A hat-tip to the gaming website Spong, then, for contacting the study's co-author, Professor Mark Griffiths of Nottingham Trent, who disavowed the claim that it shows gamers have trouble distinguishing fantasy from reality. "For one thing, we never said that in our paper," he said, "and for a second thing, the findings don't even hint at that." He added that one reporter who contacted him had interrupted his explanation with: "I don't want to know about that, I want to know the negative stuff."

How many times do we have to circle this mulberry bush? Grand Theft Auto IV alone has sold around 22m copies: for a whole generation, it is part of cultural life. It says absolutely nothing that when Donovan talked about his violent fantasies he referred to a GTA-style "kill frenzy". When members of this generation reach for a violent metaphor, they will reach for one from a video game – just as older people might reach for one from a film.

Look at the study yourself. Read the quotes. Do the interviewees sound as if they can't "tell the real world from a fantasy"? These gamers are laughing at themselves. They find it funny that it crossed their mind to use a gravity gun to fetch a Coke. They find it funny that they push an imaginary button when they drop a sandwich.

The problem with Donovan is not that he confused fantasy with reality: he was interested in real-life violence. I'd say a pretty good working definition of "not being able to tell the real world from fantasy" might be: seeking to blame a real murder on a video game, mistaking a 42-person anecdotal survey for a conclusion on human psychology, and reporting what you want to hear rather than what you're being told.