I think this is yet another case where it’s helpful to some, harmful to some, mixed to many (causes some harms and some benefits), and neutral (unused or no impact) to the vast majority. This range of impacts exists for most technologies and popular activities.
Since this is fairly new (well, romantic fiction and mental masturbation isn’t, but this depth of interactivity is), it makes sense to study both the distribution of uses, and the impact of the extremes.
I think it’s FINE for people to worry about it—it’s not silly on it’s face (though many of the worriers are silly, just as they were when it was D&D or rock music or regular porn they worried about). I don’t think your “especially if” matters to whether to worry—there are lots of cases of benefit from most worrisome changes, and that doesn’t obviously mean we shouldn’t limit or control those things.
I think this is yet another case where it’s helpful to some, harmful to some, mixed to many (causes some harms and some benefits), and neutral (unused or no impact) to the vast majority. This range of impacts exists for most technologies and popular activities.
Since this is fairly new (well, romantic fiction and mental masturbation isn’t, but this depth of interactivity is), it makes sense to study both the distribution of uses, and the impact of the extremes.
I think it’s FINE for people to worry about it—it’s not silly on it’s face (though many of the worriers are silly, just as they were when it was D&D or rock music or regular porn they worried about). I don’t think your “especially if” matters to whether to worry—there are lots of cases of benefit from most worrisome changes, and that doesn’t obviously mean we shouldn’t limit or control those things.