One thing I find myself getting hung up on is Delwiche’s argument that virtual worlds are safe:

Castranova (2001) identifies three defining features of virtual worlds: interactivity, physicality, and persistence. To this, I would add a fourth characteristic. Virtual worlds are safe. The player’s avatar may be exposed to an array of in-game dangers, but the human being is never at risk of physical harm. Furthermore, in most massively multiplayer games, the characters themselves do not experience permanent death. The character may lose experience points or a modest amount of wealth but, as Grimmelmann (2003) points out, virtual death “doesn’t really seem very deadly.” He notes that this dimension of safety is what makes virtual reality an effective therapy for agoraphobia and other anxiety-related disorders (Vincelli et al., 2003). It is also an important component of education. (166)

And I just don’t know that I totally buy this, or, at least, I don’t know that this is the case today. Indeed, while virtual death might not seem very deadly and while people may not be at risk of physical harm within the game world, it seems to me that other forms of harm (i.e. psychological, emotional) might be possible and, thus, it seems that Delwiche, here, privileges physical harm over other forms—forms that may be just as damaging.

As such, I wonder if virtual worlds are really as safe as Delwiche seems to believe—because to highlight these spaces as being safe seems to imply that this is a way that digital spaces differ from physical ones. And are they really all that different? Are digital spaces really any safer than physical ones?