The movie "Break Up" starring Vince Vaughn portrays the damaging effects of virtual communication. An adult man spends hours of his day swearing at a ten-year-old as he "owns" him in Madden Football. Lack of compassion, intimacy, and fear of reprisal lead people to acting out of character in virtual worlds.
A complete stranger is an ear phone away receiving an ear full. The touchdown dance and the antics following are clear through the audio feed. Even if the person on the other end is a friend, the lack of visual communication causes most people to act differently. This lack of intimacy can be compounded by a lack of compassion if the person is a stranger. Although playing a human seems harmless, the inability to retaliate leads to a feeling of power and invincibility. These psychological tendencies present in verbal communication media often result in serious problems.
What some perceive as a game can be interpreted as very realistic to others. In the virtual world, when people act out of character, their interactions are damaging to general interpersonal relations. Virtual interactions contain a very real human component, and these situations should be taken quite seriously.
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