I read the Wired as not less real than the real world, as the influence could flow in both directions, with events in one place causing effects in the other. The ultimate confirmation of that is the final scene, which was actually depicting Lain meeting her grown up school friend some 10 years later, while Lain stayed - timelessly - a child.
I once read a story which dealt with the lack of purpose in a world dominated by technology, where humans had nothing left to do, nowhere obvious to progress. The story presented an escape into tradition and slavery along with the progression into virtual reality, where new worlds could be built, shaped by the will of the participants as opposed to the hard rules of physics, therefore granting a whole set of new universes in which to search for meaning.
While we don't have fully fledged universes yet, we have gotten to various lengths along that road thanks to the Internet. Why should we say that experiences of the people who value their Internet goals more than the real world are invalid?