Michael Goldberg comments

The only "game" I play is kittycorner - crossing corners (with no scramble) on the side the light is green. Some might warn I am an automaton, slave to technology, and it's true I wait for the light to turn blue (as it is called in Japanese - ao). It's actually cyan (blue-green), though that may be more science than one wants to know.

Getting serious for a sec, I have never been interested in games (nor social networking events, the adult equivalent). My mid-twenties son is. Fortunately he quickly moved past carjack / murder type role playing fantasy, but he has no qualms living vicariously in a fictive world, in addition to being very functional in "reality." He was out last night with friends having a ball tracking down monsters in Kichijoji.

He tells me there's already a pirate version of the Pokemon virtual game overseas, and that one collects your connections. He believes the official version, downloaded from the Pockemon Website, is clean.

This does not negate the reality of massive data mining. I have acquaintances who never post their real names; some refuse to connect with the Web. There is truth in warnings of massive invasion of privacy, but if one retreats to the shadows of oblivion, self-censorship is the result.