Is this getting too real?

I’ve been looking at a lot of research this week, and this has been one of the questions that is much discussed: the degree to which people care about the online communities with which they are engaged.

There’s some excellent insights in a report by the Center for the Digital Future’s Jeffrey Cole.

One of the questions asked is “How often do you take action offline … related to your online community?”. Turns out 14% of people surveyed do at least once a week.

Then all this began to fall into place when I read this story about a woman in Japan who faces a possible jail term for the virtual murder of her virtual husband in Second Life style game called Maple Story.

I’m not sure which is the scarier idea: that this woman logged on and killed off her ‘husband’ or that the man turned around and filed charges against her for doing so.

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