MTV True Life: 'I Live Another Life On The Web'

How strange that this True Life would be on today! I haven't gotten to watch the whole thing yet, but what I've seen so far is very interesting. It addresses how the online persona can contrast greatly from the offline persona as Suler discusses. In one scene Amy, a girl who spends a great deal of time on Second Life decides to perform in RL. She writes songs and plays guitar and regularly has concerts on Second life, but has thus far been unable to get on a real stage. When she finally gets on stage, she is easily distracted because people do not sit quietly as avatars do on SL. She even goes so far as to say that she'll probably never perform in RL again because you can not put people on mute. I found this curious because most performers feed off of the energy of the crowd, but she would prefer people to sit soundless and motionless while she sings. She finally decided to continue performing live and even enlisted the help of a SL performer who also performs live.
The concept of friends from RL and those from VL is also addressed here. Maleri is a girl who cannot find a boyfriend in RL because she's afraid to talk to guys, but she has online relationships with several guys. When one of her real life friends finds out that she exposes herself online, it causes Malori to rethink her behavior. In this case her offline friend helped her regulate her online behavior and gave a reality check. Amy's friend from SL also became a source of inspiration in RL, so their friendship was able to transcend the restrictions of SL.

http://www.mtv.com/overdrive/?id=1586148&vid=236311

Consequences

After rereading the case about Lori Drew, I'm convinced that many people either don't care or don't think about the consequences of their online interactions. In the case of Megan Meier, someone's careless words contributed to the death of a young girl. In other instances online interaction has contributed to the corruption of children and the destruction of relationships.
I'm sure the husband who began chatting with some random woman on the internet doesn't think that typed characters could lead to the end of his marriage, but it could. I think that words read on computer screens can have just as much if not more significance than those spoken in person or on the phone. Since the reader must interpret the level of emotion behind the words there's a chance that more and not less emphasis can be placed on the exchange. Therefore the significance is in the mind of the reader. Someone other than Megan may have interpreted the words "the world would be a better place without you" as a joke or sarcasm and dismissed it. It was Megan's state of mind that allowed the message to resonate so loudly.
More on this later...