I find that I live a much more active life in this game than I ever have in real life. Back when I was making $9/hr, I can't remember a single week where my dog died, I got injured at work, the neighbor kid broke my window, I decided to see a therapist and one of my co-workers came down with a terminal condition.

I only made it to day 13, but already I've spent more in that game than I did in real life over the last month. I realize it's trying to make a point, but all it's really doing is making me suspect that it's fibbing a bit. More realism might turn out to be more convincing.

This thought: Further, I think it’s reasonable to assume a correlation between private use & public use kills the whole article. No, it isn't a reasonable assumption. If you look at my Facebook without being a friend of mine, you get a picture of me. Five years of use and that is the only public thing I have published. And I am just another dude no one cares about. I am sure billionaire CEOs and board members who have actual reporters, normal everyday gossiphounds and even crazies caring about their personal lives have even more incentive to be private. Google+'s promise isn't that is a combination of Facebook and Twitter, it is a social network where it does what you want it to. And if Google management wants their sharing to be private, that is good. I suspect a large number of their users have a similar outlook.