The results of a survey, updating a 2010 report targeting social video gamers in the U.S. and U.K by PopCap Games, found that 118.5 million people now play social games at least once a week, up 71%. Among other results in the new survey, players are now significantly more likely to spend real-world money to buy content within social games, with 31 million players having purchased in-game currency, up 86%. The social game sector is anticipated to generate $5 billion by 2015 according to market research firm Parks and Associates.

A recent report conducted by the Pew Research Center, in partnership with the Family Online Safety Institute, and supported by Cable in the Classroom, found that most American teens who use social media say that in their experience, people their age are mostly kind to one another on social network sites. 95% of all teens ages 12-17 are now online and 80% of those online teens are users of social media sites. Many log on daily to their social network pages and these have become spaces where much of the social activity of teen life is echoed and amplified in …