## 2 Digital Dualism _versus_ Augmented Reality  
By \"augmented\", I am referring to a larger conceptual perspective that views our reality as the byproduct of the enmeshing of the on and offline. This is opposed to the view shared by both conceptual positions outlined above that views the digital and physical as separate spheres--what I have called \"digital dualism\" [7]. The term \"augmented reality\" intentionally makes reference to the software applications of the same name. We can contrast \"virtual reality\" hardware and software that attempts to create a new, separate world to \"augmented reality\" applications that layer the digital and physical together. This distinction between dualistic and synthetic engineering is referenced by the \"augmented reality\" theoretical perspective I am supporting here. However, one should not confuse the software applications with the conceptual framework. Examples of digital dualism come from both cyber-dystopianists and utopianists. Many journalists, pundits and essayists critique social media as displacing \"real\", offline and face-to-face connections with online, \"virtual\" connection (prominently [PERSON]'s recent _Along Together_[8]). Indeed, this is the theme of popular books [9, 10, 11] and even the film _The Social Network_ (2010). From the utopian perspective, others have conceptualized the Internet as a new and revolutionary space free of offline limitations and social structures. Still others have discussed an online \"second self\" ([PERSON] [12]; [PERSON] [13]) separate from the offline self. These digital dualists conceptualize the Web similar to the film _The Matrix_ (1999) where the on and offline are separate spaces. Alternatively, the augmented reality perspective holds that our reality is the blurring of the on and offline, perhaps best exemplified in film by [PERSON]'s body-horror film _Videodrome_ (1983) that illustrates the implosion of technology, media and the material body. Opposed to the zero-sum view that the offline displaces the online, research (for a great list, see [14]) has demonstrated that sites like Facebook have everything to do with the offline. Our offline lives drive whom we are Facebook-friends with (as PEW data highlights [15]) and what we post about [16]. Our offline histories, social-locatedness in various structures, demographics, epistemological standpoints, _etc._ all influence how we behave online. And what happens on Facebook influences how we experience life when we are not logged in and staring at some glowing screen. For example, social media users are being trained [17] to experience the world always as a potential photo, tweet, check-in or status update. The logic of social media sites and smart phone technologies fundamentally influence how we experience reality even when offline. It is because social media _augments_ our offline lives (rather than replaces them) that research shows Facebook users have more offline contacts, are more civilically engaged, and so on [14, 15, 16]. The online and offline are not separate spheres and are thus not zero-sum. Dialectically related, one can be used to bolster the other. Other digital dualists have viewed, and continue to view, the Internet as a \"flat world\" [18]. Indeed, digitality promised a Wild-West-like frontier built without replicating the problems of our offline world; fixing the oppressive realities such as skin color, physical ability, resource scarcity as well as time and space constraints. The digital was thought to be a new frontier where information could flow freely, national boundaries could be overcome, expertism and authority could be upended. Those old structures could be wiped away in the name of a utopian and revolutionary cyber-libertarian path blazed by our heroic cyber-punk and hacker digital cowboys (indeed, those were boy's clubs). This dream could only be maintained by holding the digital as conceptually distinct from the physical. Perhaps this is understandable given this new space was literally being invented.