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"If Stadia works as described, it has the potential to upend how the gaming industry works. But it will also give Google a trove of data it didn't have before. Basic information like what games a user buys, how long they play, and what devices they play on can provide valuable insights that might help Google do what it does best: sell ads. "A good psychologist should be able to watch how most of us game and understand a whole lot about us." But how you play your games may be the most valuable data of all, according to Jon Festinger, a professor at the Centre for Digital Media, a graduate program in Canada that focuses on design. While Google can already gauge your interests or political leanings from things like your search history, video games involve actively making decisions that reveal a surprisingly intimate picture of who you are."

"Earlier this week, at the biggest video game conference of the year - the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) - Microsoft unveiled a number of new games for their Xbox One video game console. After the presentation, Anita Sarkeesian, of Feminist Frequency, correctly observed that none of the games featured had a female protagonist."

"The owner of video game marketplace Steam said it has removed a game where players could simulate a school shooting, a premise that sparked outrage among the families of survivors and turned out to be the work of a previously restricted publisher.  Valve Corporation said it has pulled Active Shooter, which was scheduled to launch on its Steam platform June 6. Steam offers a developer program allowing smaller game designers to publish their video games - commonly played on PCs or Macs - on the platform. Active Shooter was described as a "dynamic SWAT simulator" where players can choose to work as the member of a SWAT team attempting to disarm the shooter, or the shooter themselves."

"A Super Bowl ad is no longer just a Super Bowl ad. For most brands in the big game, the ad itself is the anchor for something that plays out -- largely on the web and in social -- for weeks before and hopefully for months after the game is over. So, how are the Super Bowl advertisers doing? Overall, quite well. Four days after the Super Bowl, the campaigns have racked up 344 million views. That's up 31% from last year at this time when Super Bowl ads had 240 million views, according to Visible Measures. Below you'll see how the 2014 ads stack up"

"The annual Super Bowl game is one of the last appointment TV events: we still gather around the television at the time the game is played.  For weeks before the big game, the media has been abuzz about the commercials.  This website is designed to help you incorporate these ads into instruction, no matter what you teach. Use the links in the left hand column."

"Some experts think people can become addicted to playing video games, much in the same way people are addicted to physical substances, but is that really possible? If you are a gamer, what motivates you to play? How do you resist temptation when you need to? If you don't play video games, is there another behavior that you think it would be possible to be addicted to?"

"These fast, fun and engaging activities provide teens and adults with the opportunity to test their skills and learn new authentication techniques. On the internet, it can be hard to tell what's true and what's false-but we have to make a lot of decisions based on how reliable we think things are. In Reality Check, you'll learn how to find clues like finding where a story originally came from and comparing it to other sources, as well as how to use tools like fact-checking sites and reverse image searches. In each mission, you'll be presented with a story on your social network feed that might be entirely true, entirely false, or somewhere in between. To find out, click on the different parts of the page where you see a magnifying glass. Once you've seen all the clues, you can decide how reliable you think it is and how to respond to it. Because fact-checking shouldn't be a chore, each scenario is designed to be played in 15 minutes or less. The game can be played in any internet browser on computers or mobile devices."

"While there is no demonstrated link between video game play and violence of the kind we have seen all too often in recent years, there is an active scientific debate over what we know and do not-and which next steps the scientific community should take to more definitively understand the dynamics of the many factors that are associated with highly damaging anti-social behavior. To help unpack the debate, I asked Cheryl Olson, Sci.D., one of the nation's leading authorities on the subject and author of Grand Theft Childhood to weigh in on the key research issues"

"Last week, I looked around the room and noticed an interesting thing. Maybe you're seeing this at your home as well. We were watching the NBA playoffs on TV. My wife was on her I-pad and so was I. My son was on his laptop. I'm sure if my grandson was there, he'd be staring at a device as well. My wife was checking email. I was tweeting snarky comments about the game. My son was looking at stats from the game. Let's face it. We're all multi-taskers now. Why should TV time be any different? This year, 182 million folks in the US will use the internet while watching TV at least once a month, according to an eMarketer survey. That's 80% of all internet users. So I'm not alone. Or maybe I am because only 25% of those surveyed were using their device to consumer content related to TV. The rest were doing something else, like my wife. Still, 25% were so engaged in the TV programming that they were finding additional information about what they were watching. That's still a big chunk of engaged folks. "

"The social media build up to Sunday night's Game of Thrones season six premiere was colossal, and the buzz certainly didn't stop while it aired on HBO. We asked a couple data providers for figures around the show, and below are the 6 we found most interesting."

The boys had been taking awhile, so their father eventually came in. He saw the game, and the controller, and started in on the youngest about how he needs to pick something different. Something more manly. Something with guns and fighting, and certainly not a purple controller. He tried to convince him to get the new Zombie game "Dead Island" and the little boy just stood there repeating, "Dad, this is what I want, OK?" Eventually it turned into a full-blown argument complete with Dad threatening to whoop his son if he didn't choose different items.

"Pop Secret and Deutsch Los Angeles have for the last year been coming up with innovative digital ways to change your popcorn-eating experience, via Pop Secret Labs. There was Pop Search, a browser add-on that searched the web to find the best place to watch a movie online; a Rotten Tomatoes partnership to help viewers find like-minded critics; and an app to prevent your popcorn from ever burning again. But this might top them all. Pop Dongle is a mobile phone attachment that emits the sweet-and-salty smell of popcorn as you play the brand's mobile game, Poptopia, available for iPhone and iPod Touch."

"For Gansky, the decision to tackle media literacy as part of an education in the culture industry at large-with attention paid to journalism as well as film, advertising, video games, and other kinds of storytelling-is about restoring a sense of political agency lost in the hyperpolarized world in which Ross kids live. His most effective message to the class is "You guys are living in a sort of media narrative that's been designed for you," he tells me. "And they kind of perk up across the board, whether we're people who read news or who play Fortnite. That's when you start to see, across nationalities, folks begin to go, 'I can interrogate that. My video game is actually worth analyzing the same way that a news article is.' ""

"President Trump said Thursday that violent video games and movies may play a role in school shootings, a claim that has been made - and rejected - many times since the increase in such attacks in the past two decades.

The relationship between Wonderful Pistachios and Rovio's Angry Birds entered a new level Thursday with the launch of The Hunt for the Golden Pistachio, the first fully branded Angry Birds game.

"In the lead-up to tonight's film, Generation Like, we've been asking our Facebook and Twitter communities to tell us why you use social and how it's affecting your lives. Hundreds of you have told us about the choices you're making - and why you're making them. We've asked a few writers who've thought a lot about social media to read your comments and reflect on them in the context of tonight's film. We also want to hear from you! Share your reactions below in the comments. Does Social Media Empower or Exploit? Douglas Rushkoff, Generation Like correspondent Douglas Rushkoff: Does Social Media Empower or Exploit? Generation Like correspondent Douglas Rushkoff is the author, most recently, of Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now, as well a dozen other books on media, technology and culture. He was correspondent on three previous FRONTLINE films, The Merchants of Cool (2001), The Persuaders (2004), and Digital Nation (2010). Follow him on Twitter @Rushkoff. In the lead-up to Generation Like, FRONTLINE has been asking questions about social media on social media. As I wade through the many responses, I am reminded of my own questions about these platforms when I began making this documentary. Like me, many of you are thrilled by the opportunity for connection and self-expression that social media offer.   Calum James Facebook is the best communication tool ever created. February 12 at 7:02pm   But many of you also share a sense of skepticism about what it is that social media - and the companies behind them - ask from us in return.   We all know this has something to do with our data. We create consumer profiles for the unseen companies on the other side of the screen, and enter into a relationship with them that isn't entirely clear. "Who is doing what for whom, and to what end?" The need to understand this better - and what it means for the young people using this stuff - is what set us on our journey to explor

Full Video "Consuming Kids throws desperately needed light on the practices of a relentless multi-billion dollar marketing machine that now sells kids and their parents everything from junk food and violent video games to bogus educational products and the family car. Consuming Kids pushes back against the wholesale commercialization of childhood, raising urgent questions about the ethics of children's marketing and its impact on the health and well-being of kids."

"McDonald's is testing the waters for a Twitter hashtag campaign again with its first TV ad directing users to join the conversation on Twitter. The effort, which began Monday, supports the brand's Pro Bowl tie-in. For 20 days this month, McDonald's will drop one ticket a day to the Pro Bowl in Hawaii in a package of 20-piece McNuggets. (The item will contain a paper certificate saying so, in the tradition of Willy Wonka's Golden Ticket.) The brand will also give away one ticket on Twitter and randomly award prizes to people who tweet with the #mcdprobowl hashtag from the ad. Prizes include coupons for a free 20-piece McNuggets, a year's supply of McNugget sauce and personalized tweets from NFL players to fans, among others. Rick Wion, director of social media for McDonald's, says that the brand chose Twitter because of "the amount of conversation going on there" around the game."

Male and female images As one dramatic example, the image and representation of women and girls in the media has long been a subject of concern. Research shows that there are many fewer females than males in almost all forms of mainstream media and those who do appear are often portrayed in very stereotypical ways. Constantly polarized gender messages in media have fundamentally anti-social effects. In everything from advertising, television programming, newspaper and magazines, to comic books, popular music, film and video games, women and girls are more likely to be shown: in the home, performing domestic chores such as laundry or cooking; as sex objects who exist primarily to service men; as victims who can't protect themselves and are the natural recipients of beatings, harassment, sexual assault and murder. Men and boys are also stereotyped by the media. From GI Joe to Rambo, masculinity is often associated with machismo, independence, competition, emotional detachment, aggression and violence. Despite the fact that men have considerably more economic and political power in society than women, these trends - although different from those which affect women and girls - are very damaging to boys.