Is the video game FarmVille merely a harmless Facebook diversion? Not for one city councilman in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. Dimitar Kerin was kicked off a committee for spending too much time during council meetings tending to his crops rather than real-world business. Fellow member Todor Hristov, who initiated the move to oust Kerin, couched it as a back-handed blessing for the disgraced politician, saying that he "needs more time for his virtual farm."

A recent study of 13,000 respondents, ages 8 and up, found that 24% of U.S. gamers consider social networks such as Facebook and MySpace as their primary gaming destination. That amounts to about 44 million social networking gamers with an average age of about 28. The study, conducted by gamesindustry.com and the research company TNS Media Intelligence, also reported that women make up about 55% of that group.

According to a recent Nielsen study, the typical teenager (age 13-17) plows through 3,146 text messages each month. In the under-12 segment of the population, the number is 1,146. Those figures (for teens and kids, respectively) work out to roughly 10 and 4 messages per hour—one every six and 15 minutes—for every hour not spent in school or sleeping.

Phoebe Prince, the 15-year-old Irish immigrant who committed suicide in January after being cyberbullied via text messages and social networking sites, has posthumously become something of an online martyr. Prince was allegedly victimized by nine fellow students (seven girls, two boys) in South Hadley, Mass., all of whom now face a variety of charges, including criminal harassment and stalking. In the wake of her death, a Facebook group called "Expel the three girls who caused Phoebe Prince to commit suicide" has (at the publication of this clip) attracted some 46,000 fans. The page features pictures of the accused students and comments on their actions. At least one person posting on the page has suggested that some of the critical comments about the alleged bullies could themselves, ironically, be construed as cyberbullying.

An online phenomenon with the odd moniker "human-flesh search engines" is sweeping China. In a nutshell, it's a hybrid form of digital-meets-real-world vigilantism in which people who've seen troubling online videos track down their creators and expose the horrible things they've done. The first such case in China involved a video that showed a woman brutally killing a cat. A number of self-appointed online "detectives" were so disturbed that they worked to uncover her identity and, as a result, got her fired. Similar scenarios have played out since. "The goal is to get targets of a search fired from their jobs, shamed in front of their neighbors, run out of town," reported The New York Times' Tom Downey. "It's crowd-sourced detective work, pursued online—with offline results."

A viral video supposedly featuring an elementary school rendition of the R-rated film Scarface has turned out to be a work of satire by filmmaker Marc Klasfeld. The video features one scene from the film reinacted by elementary-age kids who pretend to gun down their classmates. (A pile of popcorn replaces cocaine, and the word "fudge" stands in for the f-word.) It initially sparked online outrage from folks who thought the play was an actual school production. Even after the truth came out, some continue to wonder whether it's appropriate for children to re-create one of the most profane, violent scenes in the history of cinema. Klasfeld, for his part, is unmoved. "They're 7 to 10 years old," he says. "Again, to them, they have heard the f-word. They've seen more violence in their everyday lives for as long as they can remember. … So this wasn't that big of a deal for them."

QUOTE: "We think of Ronald McDonald as a deep-fried Joe Camel for the 21st century." —Deborah Lapidus, senior organizer at Corporate Accountability International, the watchdog group that helped force R.J. Reynolds to abandon its Joe Camel mascot. CAI is now planning to label Ronald McDonald as a kid-magnet for fattening, unhealthy foods. McDonald's has responded with a statement calling the clown "a beloved brand ambassador for McDonalds."

Teens are getting more mature as adults become less so, according to analyst William Higham. And he believes these changes may require some equally revolutionary shifts in advertising. Higham says that teens, raised amid greater social and cultural dangers than their forebears, have become more conservative, both economically and socially. More than three-quarters of teens (according to a Microsoft survey) say that "family is the most important thing in their lives," more than half say their No. 1 priority is to live "by high moral standards" and 83% say they expect to get married. In contrast, Boomers in their 50s are dating more (they're the fastest growing segment of the online dating business) and using more drugs. (Fiftysomethings consume more marijuana than any other age group, and illicit drug use in that age bracket rose 70% between 2002 and 2008.)

"With such attitudinal and behavioral shifts, it's time to reassess age-related segmentation," Higham writes. "Products and services we assumed teens would never want may now appeal to them, like insurance and pensions. But those we once happily sold them may now have to be rebranded for older markets, from street fashion and alcopops to personal technology. The standard 'edgy' teen-focused ad—appealing to rebellious, hedonistic or iconoclastic values—may not work with the new teen, whereas ads that appeal to traditional values might. Those edgy ads might now be better aimed at the boomers, perhaps fronted by Aerosmith's Steven Tyler or Blondie's Debbie Harry."

A study by Dartmouth pediatrician James D. Sargent and his research team indicates that parents should pay close attention to the possible influence of R-rated movies among teens. "The message to parents is clear," says Sargent, "Take the movie ratings literally. Under 17 should not be permitted to see R-rated movies." Why? Because watching such films may prompt young viewers to engage in dangerous risk taking. "[The data] showed that R-rated movies not only contain scenes of alcohol use that prompt adolescents to drink, they also jack up the sensation-seeking tendency, which makes adolescents more prone to engage in all sorts of risky behaviors." The results of Sargent's research were published in the March 2010 issue of Prevention Science.

QUOTE: "What I've discovered is that in art, as in music, there's a lot of truth—and then there's a lie. The artist is essentially creating his work to make this lie a truth, but he slides it in amongst all the others. The tiny little lie is the moment I live for, my moment. It's the moment that the audience falls in love." —pop phenomenon Lady Gaga. She added, "I can have hit records all day, but who f‑‑‑ing cares? A year from now, I could go away, and people might say, 'Gosh, what ever happened to that girl who never wore pants?' But how wonderfully memorable 30 years from now, when they say, 'Do you remember Gaga and her bubbles?' Because, for a minute, everybody in that room will forget every sad, painful thing in their lives, and they'll just live in my bubble world."

QUOTE: "If anything, I wish she'd dress more conservatively. How's that for irony?" —Madonna, discussing her 13-year-old daughter's fashion sense with Us Weekly. Madonna and her daughter, Lourdes, are developing a teen clothing line for Macy's dubbed Material Girls.

When Tareq and Michaele Salahi recently crashed a White House party, it was alleged that part of their motivation was to get themselves cast on Bravo's reality show The Real Housewives of D.C. And it seems that gambit has paid off, as the pair has indeed snagged a spot on the program. "Isn't Bravo rewarding/encouraging bad, if not dangerous behavior?" asks Time TV critic James Poniewozik. "Why, of course not—according to the report, Bravo was 'relieved' to learn that the Salahis are not being prosecuted, so evidently that makes everything just fine."