This has direct relevance if you are planning an online community for people with no Internet access. But more importantly, it is also a call to each of us to recognize how we can lessen the divide and look for ways to contribute to the improvement of our communities as part of our online life. There are examples from all the extreams, but the more relevant question is how do we integrate our offline and online experiences. For example, the Well is a good example of a place where people are fundamentally themselves. People are role playing, and playing out a fantasy role.
Many game communities are like that.
The gaming-oriented communities will affect you emotionally, but they won't tend to integrate into your life as what I would call 'augmented reality' communities do. The fantasy communities that are about escaping from who you are and pretending to be someone else. So much about augmenting reality is more about shaping your life. I think that the augmented reality type of communities have become progressively more entwined in people's lives. The telephone is a communications channel that augments your life, so these communities are sort of like the telephone.