The reality is probably a little less palatable. Teens are watching more TV than they ever have. They are also spending more and more of their daily lives online. We are all aware of teens ability to multi-task, but here we are talking about Media-Meshing.

Teens are able to consume more than two media at any one time. The best bit for us is that they cross-reference one with another. TV will deliver the scale, online delivers the immersion. It’s a beautiful thing. The point is simple, neither TV or the Internet are silos, they are intimately woven together. (via ThreeBillion)

The term “casual” refers to games that are typically inexpensive to produce, straightforward in concept, easy to learn, and simple to play. Casual games span game genres with casual game titles occupying most, if not all, genre categories.

Based on data from the first six months of 2009:

• 41 million Americans play casual games on average. Of the top 20 casual game titles that Nielsen tracked in May 2009, card games, played by 88% of casual gamers, were by far the most popular. Puzzle games were a distant second at 9.5 percent.

• Casual gamers spend less than half the time non-casual gamers do in each session. While casual game sessions lasted an average of 31 minutes, non-casual was more than double, at 80 minutes per session (World of Warcraft helped bump up this average, with an average play time of nearly 120 minutes).

• Females make up the majority of casual gamers (58%), a significant shift from non-casual games, which are much more of a man’s world. Males make up a full 75 percent of those playing non-casual shooter games, and 63 percent of those playing role-playing games.

• The players of non-casual games also tend to have computers with much more memory, averaging over 2 gigabytes, compared with the relatively modest 0.5 to 1 gigabytes of the casual gamers.

You can find the executive summary of the report after the break, but just one thing, Go ahead and enjoy those casual games, but be sure to take a break now and then, okay?

Henry Jenkins is the director, Comparative Media Studies Program at MIT. In this viral-info-snack he discusses the power of media in a 21 century trans-mediated world. A world where converging technologies and cultures give rise to a new media landscape.

UK Will Urge Legalization of Mashups: Lord Mandelson’s three-strikes proposal may have gobbled all the headlines. But a parallel package published Wednesday, aimed at liberalising copyright, may prove just as important for some creators. [paidContentUK]

What Do Teens Want? Their Moms Off Facebook: The problem with Facebook? Moms. "My mom uses it to plan dinner" was the sound bite complaint. One #w2s hashtag user remarked that he would pay his mom money to get OFF Facebook. [SF Chronicle]

Social Telly--A Round Up of Social Viewing: Television has always been a social thing. Whether it’s because you’re watching it with family and friends at home, watching football in the pub, chatting at school or work with friends about that programme that you all love the night before, television is about much more than a broadcast. [Roo Reynolds | What's Next?]

Industry panel warns media companies Must Embrace Social Media: As social networking becomes more prevalent among consumers of all ages, media companies will have to learn how to navigate the various social media outlets like Facebook and Twitter to reach out and market to their customers, according to a panel of media executives speaking at a CTAM Summit ’09 panel session Monday. [MultiChannelNews]

Internet Archive Opens 1.6 Million E-Books on OLPC Laptops: The Internet Archive operates 20 scanning centers in five countries, where hundreds of workers are manually scanning books from public and university libraries, mostly public-domain works for which the copyright term has expired. It collects these books at its Open Access Text Archive. [Xconomy]

Curation| The End of Content Aggregation: In an age where anyone can be a publisher, it is now up to the editor to curate the best of the massive amounts of content now available in a way that is easily digestible. The role of the journalist is much like a museum curator whittling down, say, 19th century Neo-Classicism, into a single, walkable hallway. [eMedia]

OMG, Senators Target Texting: The senate, the Department of Transportation and the FCC want you to stop texting while driving, and on Wednesday, they all but declared a war on texting, promising education campaigns and laws to convince you to put your phone down — at least while you are piloting a two-ton SUV going 70 mph. [Wired]

Tweet O' The Week: "Customers are people first and they do not care about your ROI." via @kyleplacy / Kyle Lacy

Mobile Augmented Reality: There’s some momentum building in the mobile-based augmented reality space in Oz. Related: Second Use for Google Wave Discovered: Role Playing Games. [TechNation Australia] [Gizmodo]

Zombie Walk & Gen Y: The political classes are also acutely aware of some realities of demographics, and this has lead them to target Gen Y more heavily. Generation Y are going to inherit the working world, and remain in charge of it for many years to come. [Crazy Epic]

It's been a few weeks since her highly publicized break up with BFF Twitter, but it sounds like Miley is still having a hard time moving on. In a recent interview with a Chicago DJ she says that "Twitter should just be, like, banned from this universe."

Whoa Miley! What's up with that? Why are you hatin' on Twitter?

Sayeth the Miley:

"Because people, like, honestly, like, I mean people wanna know why, like, you're, like, unhealthy, and, like, you need, like, get out and do stuff and, like, be in the world instead of being like this (pretends to be hunched over a keyboard) all the time. And, like, all I did was, like, lay in bed all the time."

Yo, Miley...chillax! By the way, her Twitter rant starts at, like, 3:17 in the video.

The monopoly once held by broadcast media is over and now, in addition to cable outlets, they must compete with causal gaming, online video and social networking for viewers eyeballs.

Michael Buckley is the star of "What the Buck Show" a show that he writes, produces and distributes on YouTube. Before you dismiss Michael's show as mere UGC YouTube drivel, consider this: What the Buck Show has over 600,930 subscribers (one of the most subscribed channels of ALL TIME), 180 million views and is the top rated entertainment show on all of YouTube.

In December of 2008, he was featured on the front page of the New York Times and he has appeared on CNN, CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox, FoxNews, the CW, BloombergTV, and E! Each episode of “What the Buck?” is viewed an average of 200,000 times and the more popular ones have reached up to three million views. Not to mention the 250,000+ Twitter followers!

What's the secret of his success? Hard work, a loyal fan base, deep engagement with his viewer community, willingness to give back to the YouTube community, and a deep understanding of how viewers consume media.

• Community: Odds are that, unless I'm part of a studio audience, I won't have an opportunity to interact with Jay Leno, David Letterman or Conan O'Brien. However, a fan of What The Buck can interact with Michael via Twitter, YouTube, his live show on BlogTV or even email. Not only does he banter with his audience across all US time zones, he also interacts with his fans in the UK as well. When does this guy sleep?
  

• Snack Size Snippets: Michael produces content that is quick and easy to view. Unlike broadcast and cable TV, viewers don't have to dedicate a hour to watch an entire show. They can watch an entire episode in 4 or 5 minutes. And since Michael is able to produce new episodes at a moments notice, his content is current, fresh and relevant to viewers.

• Call to Action: There is nothing passive about an episode of What the Buck. Whether it's subscribing to his show, asking for their video responses to his show, or asking what they think--Michael is constantly asking for his audience to be involved in the creation of the show. This provides both user retention and engagement, but also makes viewers feel like they have a stake in the success of the show.

• Get Real: One of the things that makes Michael so popular is that, unlike network shows or 'traditional media' outlets, Michael will call it as he sees it. Miley on a pole at the Nickelodeon Teen Choice Awards? Michael is the first one to go all What the Buck! and call her out on her inappropriate behavior. Michael says what most people are thinking, and his authenticity is a great hook to keeping the audience engaged and coming back for more.

The future of TV might not be online video or UGC, but indie digital content producers like Michael Buckley have used free tools like YouTube, hard work and raw talent to create both buzz and an audience hungry for his content, leaving fans shouting "I had to have it!"

Game on TV. Game on.

In the report, Mr. Youth shares the four attributes that make Millennial Moms digital trendsetters:

• They’re multi-tech multitaskers
• They build communities to ease transitions
• They crowdsource decisions
• They’re masters of the overshare

Be sure to follow Mr. Youth on Twitter and Facebook to stay current on the latest Millennial Mom & youth marketing trends.

via Pew Internet | Twitter and Status Updating

Pocket Guide to Social Media & Kids: When is a phone not a phone? In the hands of children and tweens, today’s cell phones are primarily used as text messaging devices, cameras, gaming consoles, video viewers, MP3 players, and incidentally, as mobile phones via the speaker capability so their friends can chime in on the call. Parents are getting dialed in to the social media phenomenon and beginning to understand—and limit—how children use new media. [Nielsen Wire]

Times Publisher Compares Print Media to Iceberg: NYT publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. responds to the question of what advice he has for people going into journalism. His response, comparing to the Titanic, is not what you think. He reminds people that the airplane was actually invented 12 years before the Titanic set sail. See how he compares that to journalism and the future of newspapers. [NY Magazine]

Suicidal Teen Saved by Facebook: A teen who posted a Facebook suicide note was saved after a frantic international race-against-time rescue. [Star]

New Blackberry Bold Targeting Gen Y: The flagship BlackBerry Bold 9700 was today launched in Sydney, with the manufacturer, Research in Motion, targeting the nascent Y Generation as a key new demographic. (Thanks to YPulse for the heads up!) [Current]

Yahoo! Adds Music Video Search: Starting today, you can easily dive into albums and songs by your favorite music artist in Yahoo! Video Search. We have hooked into the “Web of Things” to intelligently extract the most popular albums and songs for artist or band queries. This feature lets you explore music artists intuitively and easily. [Yahoo! Search Blog]

Defying Labels Millennials Are Leaving Their Mark on TV: That simplistic kind of presentation of youth on TV has shown its limits over the decades; easy-to-read stereotypes no longer seem credible. It’s archaic to define young TV characters at a glance, to merely stamp them with shorthand labels such as “popular kid’’ or “jock.’’ [Boston Globe]

Electronic Arts Introduces Flip e-books for DS: Electronic Arts is confident that its new Flips range of e-books for kids can not only be a sales success – but actually widen the audience of Nintendo’s DS. (Thanks Matthew!) [MCV]

Forests Cleared to Make Children's Books: New report reveals that a significant amount of deforestation in Asia's tropical forests is caused by the production of kid's books. (Hat Tip @Michael Pinto) [Mother Nature Network]

Queen Rania|Stop Ignoring the Girls!: Global leaders are overlooking one of their most valuable weapons in the fight against everything from climate change to economic turmoil. [Daily Beast]

Social Web Tips for Teens: Today part of parenting is learning about all the technology our kids are using.  This is not an easy task and for many of us that didn't grow up in "cyberspace" it can be daunting. Related: Amy James on technology and your kids. [Examiner] [Knowledge Essentials]

And what did we do with that free time? Well, mostly we spent it watching TV.

We did that for decades. We watched I Love Lucy. We watched Gilligan's Island. We watch Malcolm in the Middle. We watch Desperate Housewives.

Desperate Housewives essentially functioned as a kind of cognitive heat sink, dissipating thinking that might otherwise have built up and caused society to overheat.

And it's only now, as we're waking up from that collective bender, that we're starting to see the cognitive surplus as an asset rather than as a crisis. We're seeing things being designed to take advantage of that surplus, to deploy it in ways more engaging than just having a TV in everybody's basement.

Here's something four-year-olds know: Media that's targeted at you but doesn't include you may not be worth sitting still for. Those are things that make me believe that this is a one-way change.

Because four year olds, the people who are soaking most deeply in the current environment, who won't have to go through the trauma that I have to go through of trying to unlearn a childhood spent watching Gilligan's Island, they just assume that media includes consuming, producing and sharing.

-- Gin, Television, and Social Surplus, Clay Shirky