9 kids out of 10 play games online.

In today's society, it is hard to be a kid and not play video games. You end up being taunted by your classmates for not knowing that water Pokemon prevails over fire, that Mario has concave eyebrows, and that Lara Croft has anti-gravity breasts. M2 Research decided to investigate the relationship between today's kids and video games. Some of the results are below.

• Social networking is increasingly prevalent in children's lives. Facebook is now the favorite website among tween boys (8 to 11) and teen girls (12 to 15).
• 91& of tween boys and 93% of tween girls play games online.
• Nintendo dominates the handheld gaming space. Apple is becoming an increasingly significant player, especially with girls. The PSP is more of a boy thing (44% of teen boys play on PSP vs. 17% of teen girls).

Wanda Meloni, contributing author to the report, told Gamasutra in a phone call, "The data definitely shows that kids are influenced by video games, probably more than any other media, yet we did an analysis specifically for online gaming, and found that total investment in online games for kids is quite lower than what's been historically invested -- Club Penguin was pretty much half of the total investment in the kids space."

Source: M2 Research "Kids and Games: What Boys and Girls are Playing Today" Report, as reported by Gamasutra.