With just some shy reflections on the subject of virtual, Davey Winder's book has nothing of a theoretical or scientific book. It rather covers systematically a large range of cases — many of them seemingly awkward at first sight, e.g., "rape of an avatar" — quite real, though happened in the virtual environment. Then, seldom reaching the threshold of some moral lesson, the author exposes the feeling and thoughts of those involved in the story. And offers very simple explanations and illustrations for almost any important concept one needs to know for being part of the virtual life.

There are lots of questions, of course. Who do I become when I log in, and who do I leave behind when log out? What's the use of "socializing" over a virtual network? What can I get? And what consequences for the "real life" can show up? Is cybersex sex, or not? It is good (or legal, for that matter) to get involved in any kind of activities? And so on. If someone wants to find such answers, this book can be the right choice. Except that it doesn't offer firm answers. It offers instead enough to ruminate on the subjects related to the virtual, starting from the common observation that sometimes we have to split between real and virtual, or from the fact that among the harsh consequences some cybernaut can experience in real life we'll find some bothering ones. You don't have a "Delete" key, and also you can't get a fake identity. But there are disturbing aspects in the virtual also, which constitutes just pale resemblances of those from reality. You can't hold actually the loved one, for example.

At the level of cans and can'ts the things doesn't stop here, however, but the author get some very expressive reports over the conditions of possibility in both environments. More important it seems to me the fact that the author does not give some stiff answers or verdicts for the above mentioned questions or for a certain pattern of internet usage. He rather offers sufficient data for everyone to pick up a "personal" answer. Yes, the thing with the internet is that we rarely find an item that is unquestionable, i.e. ubiquitous legal, assessed as good, recommended as helpful, etc. So, the lessons wouldn't have their place here; another reason to praise adequately the "humble" unfolding of the discourse.

People can really be a surprise, either by being honest, or by showing traits that one would never surmise. The author tells us stories which would be not so credible for someone anchored exclusively in the real world. At the same time, we can get a hint that in the virtual world even more "incredible" stories are possible. It is the very (or most) opened world, by definition. The one who gets in there may face the most unfathomable circumstances of life, or even some very surprising facets of the self. That's the matter of Who you really are online?

Even without a story of Academe descendent, I find Davey Winder's book a good instrument for getting contact with the rich world of virtual reality, in order to build theories, or even to extract research ideas, not to speak about a serious load of item to be dissected in the applied ethics labs. Except with few examples — "There were some 3,237,500 cybercrimes committed in the UK during 2006", or "as of July 2007 there are some 1,173,109,925 people who use the internet across the globe" –, we get no statistics. But in this context the numbers, however poor, are simply well proportioned to the story. I don't know if it was the author's intention to serve the needs of scientists of thinkers of the web, but the book deserves their attention. In the same time, being fairly approachable, it is of great use for simple owners of IDs also. In fact, we are talking about an environment in which, even if sex hasn't very natural odor, money does. And between the two lies an entire string of matters. It's an open world!

© 2008 Viorel Zaicu

Viorel Zaicu, Ph.D., Bucharest, Romania

Keywords: Internet, psychology