IM vs. Active Worlds

Im not much of a gamer and i personally found active worlds a bit dull. Active Worlds is largely a game, and a world where if youve got nothing better to do you could probably whittle the hours seemingly away. On the other hand I love to use instant msg, as its a quick way of having a conversation with my friends without the expense of a lengthy phone call. And for me i guess that is where the major difference lies between these two applications. With instant msg it is connected to your email account and the people I talk to on it are known to me and have been added by me. I am not pretending to be a character like I am on Active Worlds, i am representative of my true identity on msn. Active Worlds allows you to create an imaginary identity, where you can meet new, unknown people in their fantasy 3d world. It is this 3d world that adds the game/fantasy level to it. I dont have to be represetative of myself within it nor do other people. I make my username/character up and so do the other people. Active Worlds, i realise is an older game, and it is not a true or modern virtual world, it does not fake reality, yet the fact that some people can loose themselves for hours within these types of games is to me a worrying future trend. With the creation of better virtual worlds, we become a step closer to a virtual world in which people may begin to use to hide from their real lives. The more time they spend within these virtual worlds the less they spend within their real lives and tend to their relationships with real people. The creation of virtual worlds could eventually isolate us by technology and meddle with our sense of emotion. The movie eXistenZ was a good representation of these dangers and asked its audience where the line will lie between the worlds, where the difference will be between reality and virtual and how will we know it?