Official News page 8

REAL LIFE NEWS: BABY DIES OF NEGLECT WHILE PARENTS USE WEB

by Hazed

If you thought the last story was grim, this one is even worse. A South Korean couple were so addicted to the internet they allowed their three-month old baby to starve to death while they raised a virtual daughter online.

Police said that the pair fed their own baby, who was premature, just once a day in between 12-hour stretches at an internet café. They had "lost the will to live a normal life" after losing their jobs, and "indulged themselves online" to escape from reality.

The 41-year-old father and his wife, 25, were arrested last week, five months after they reported the death of their baby. An autopsy showed that she died of malnutrition after a long period of neglect.

The couple had become obsessed with nurturing a virtual girl called Anima in a popular role-playing game.

What a horrible, tragic story! As with the last story, I don't think the internet, or online games, can be blamed in this case - I am sure the outcome would have been the same whatever the parents became obsessed by. But the fact that there is a "virtual daughter" involved really does make this particularly poignant.

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