Great find! Thank you!
I don't think that it is more scaring than 'everybody has a dog, but no one to speak with'.
Games already help and mislead, as movies or books did and do.
The avatar 'mechanic' works, because our brain already thinks in this way, our brain uses 'avatars' to handle our personal and social relations - our image of ourself is sort of an avatar which is build from the role model of our parents.
Although, I didn't expect that a game character actually could be such an elementary part of our life later on in the future.
But, there are quite nice possibilities. I could feed the AI of my Avatar with the philosophical knowledge or strategies of a targeted career of myself to push myself in a direction that I want to achieve. The avatar could became a sort of coach, f.i. asking me whether I wear a fresh shirt when leaving the house to participate in a meeting... and so on.

EDIT: Maybe, it is a bit scary, but then the society has to control whether an avatar is good or not.