The notion that the internet will lead people to retreat from the physical world – and real human relationships – in favour of digital facsimiles has been around as long as the net itself. An odd study from the Pew Internet and American Life project, released on Monday, again underscored this fear, with futurists and tech gurus predicting that people will increasingly immerse themselves in virtual experiences, and that a potentially violent backlash against technology might emerge.

Personally, I don't see it. Indeed, I'd suggest that even as virtual worlds become more realistic and people engage in all kinds of alternative online realities, the value of real-world, in-person experiences will only increase. Three events in my little town illustrate that pretty well.

This past Sunday, a beautiful autumn afternoon, the skateboarder Tony Hawk came to town to help christen a new skate park, a community project that was six years in the making. Something like 10,000 people turned out – that is a lot of people in Missoula, Montana – to see him and his cohorts skate (and perform for the cameras). The show was courtesy of videogame-maker Activision, which produces the immensely successful Tony Hawk skateboard games.

Videogames conjure images of podgy, sallow-faced children twitching away in darkened rooms and missing out on the glories of sport. But rather than keeping kids inside, Tony Hawk's videogames have spurred many a youngster to get out and ride. I'd wager that if it weren't for those videogames there would be no skate park in Missoula, and there certainly wouldn't have been a huge community party on Sunday afternoon.

The second big event is, of all things, a Rolling Stones concert. We just don't get acts like the Stones coming through here very often – the city of Missoula only has about 50,000 residents – and people are more than a little excited about it. I've seen the Stones before and if I were living in a big city I wouldn't even consider shelling about hundreds of dollars to see a bunch of old guys play a bunch of old songs, but everyone in Missoula will be at the concert, and I will too.

How is it that the Stones can sell out concert after concert, year after year, at ticket prices so exorbitant that I almost skipped it just on principle? It's not for the music, which sounds just as good on an iPod, or even for Mick's dancing, which you can easily see on a video. It's a happening, a shared experience, and even at a time when large crowds conjure all kinds of fears and people have all sorts of virtual alternatives, the hunger for that is more powerful as ever.

The third example – if you'll forgive the self-promotion – is our upcoming New West conference on Real Estate and Development in the Northern Rockies. We're an online publication with a vibrant virtual community, but we've always thought it would be important to do live, real-world events, and the response so far to our conference certainly confirms that.

I learned about the power of conferences at the Industry Standard, the news magazine about the dot-com era that I co-founded and edited. Even though we were about the internet, a print magazine was our core product – and conferences and parties were central to our success.

In fact, one of the under-appreciated facts about the Standard was that our big take-off dated from our first big conference; there was an amazing group of people there, and the word quickly got out that this was something you had to be involved with if you wanted to be a player in this particular world. Our weekly rooftop parties were legendary: the allure of the computer and the net did nothing to diminish people’s desire to hobnob, in person, with cocktails in hand.

Virtual communities are well and good, and they are and will be very important dimensions of the human experience. But not only are they not a substitute for real-world happenings, they are in many cases complimentary. And I don't think there's any danger of that changing anytime soon.

Jonathan Weber is the founder and editor in chief of NewWest.Net, a new type of regional news and information service focused on the Rocky Mountain West in the United States. He was previously the co-founder and editor in chief of the Industry Standard

Click here to read more of his articles

Explore Tech & Web

• Personal Tech

• The Web

• Gadgets & Gaming

Times recommends

• From joystick to helmet: it's all in the mind
• 'Maniacal' engineer takes city computers hostage
• 3G iPhone review: fast but power-hungry