social interaction on the internet not necessarily an unhealthy substitute for real life!

[cimorene]

My grandfather typed up a letter to the editor from last month's Science:

"Recent evidence has shown that virtual reality-based treatments effectively combat anxiety disorders and allow subjects to develop real-world skills starting from virtual experiences. These successes raise the possibility of creating on-line immersive therapeutic environments for specific disorders. Image, for example, a patient with a social phobia who avoids any interaction with other people. After a number of face-to-face sessions with a therapist, the patient can use his personal vatar to explor a virtual environment, such as a virtual pub where he can ask the barman for a drink. In the following sessions, other people progressively enter the same virtual pub . . . and interact with the patient until he can develop efficient social contacts. . . ." [typos his]

The sad part about all this is that the mention of asking a virtual bartender for a virtual drink in a virtual pub makes me anxious. :(