In the US, a 33-year-old woman has been charged with plotting to kidnap a boyfriend she met through the virtual reality wesite, 'Second Life'. Kimberly Jernigan was arrested outside her cyberlover's house armed with a stun gun, handcuffs and duct tape.

Police say the two met on the alternate reality website 'Second Life', but the man broke off the relationship after they met in person.

Second Life is an alternate virtual world, where you create a character called an 'avatar'. The Second Life world is called Linden; it has it's own currency and economy, and real-world companies like IBM advertise on it. The world is called Linden and it even has it's own currency and real companies advertise on it. 

As Pete Blasina pointed out, the danger is you can get confused between fantasy and reality, as this woman in America has done.

Some Sunrise viewers have seen their family and friends affected:

I have a friend that is on second life and it consumes her real life from when she gets out of bed at about 5 am until all hours of the night. Their internet was down for a few days and she went through withdrawals, so she drove for 2 hours to go to her mother-in-laws house just to get into second life. 

And, 

Hi, i am married to an avid online gamer who before we met could play minimum 3 days straight of online games and not think anything of it, and his friends have week long LAN parties. I also know someone who played World of Warcraft (WOW) and met someone online so he left his wife in Sydney and moved to Perth to find this female online gamer. Since when did the simple game of solitaire turn into a life changing, money and time sucking reality game?

 

More info: News article on Yahoo!7