Curious, on what level do people you interact with on a regular basis online not count as real? So, for one, everything present in a face to face conversation is stripped away, and for good or bad all that's left is a free interchange of words and ideas. You can only be judged by what you type, and granted, many people probably will exaggerate, a lot, but would that be any more so than meeting someone on the street, or in a bar or restaurant?
When you post on a forum, or chat room, do you not have the time to think about what you want to type? There's no awkwardness about typing things that you actually feel, that maybe are things you can't put verbally in conversation are easier to type.
If you are all at once 'friends' with someone online, and feel comfortable talking openly about your hobbies, interests and etc. Are they less a friend if you've never met them outside the internet?
As for gaming, are they inherently worthless because nothing is really permanent, or rather, all data on a server somewhere. So winning a game of chess against someone is just automatically better because you were sitting right there with them? To take that further, is the win any less if you played the game of chess online?
Then again, the same thing can be said about TV, the internet, books, etc.
Ahhh but when someone is reading a book that they're interested in, do the parents/community/national media start screaming "this child is a social reject!"? No. The community thinks "aww, he's being educational, leave him to enjoy his book". What teaches tactics better than planning a raid? What teaches teamwork better than a sycronised attack on multiplayer FPS game? books? I think not...
/rant
Just so, actually, there was a point in history when reading -was- considered just that, but time passes and now it's gaming's turn and that of the internet.
