Arnab Sen is head of strategic planning at MRM , a global, top-five digital and direct agency in India. As a trained anthropologist, Arnab applies social science to develop working models that help decode and interpret cultures of consumption, categories and brands.

Social science studies increasingly suggest that the divide between the virtual and real worlds is narrowing. Our experiences of reality may no longer constitute a duality. Nathan Jurgenson of Society Pages, a multi-blog social science forum hosted by the University of Minnesota, rejects the idea of dualism. “No longer can we think of a ‘real’ world opposed to being ‘online,’” he says.

Be that as it may, a life that crosses virtual and the physical boundaries raises new issues, and requires fresh approaches to understanding technology and culture. Recent debates about the ownership of virtual air, for example, demand new perspectives and resolutions.

Actor Network Theory

Technology is the process through which human beings and machines interact and, therefore, create culture. This concept is called the Actor Network Theory (ANT). The social theory studies the relationship between material things and immaterial concepts. This is the space in which product, usability, and ideas like brand experience and freedom of choice are located.

In urban South Korea, retailer Tesco had made a strategic move to widen its footprint by installing Home Plus virtual stores in commuter rail stations. Images of physical shelves appear on 2D screens. Consumers shop the screens, using smartphones to scan product QR codes and purchase provisions that Home Plus will ship to their doors.

The Home Plus innovation actually affords the speed and convenience of online shopping with the feel of a brick and mortar store, and in doing so, sits in between physical and virtual spaces.

Seen through the lens of ANT, this innovation networks human and non-human actors (shoppers, displays, train stations, QR codes and delivery process) in a human – and thus, cultural – environment to acquire meaning. Does this make the experience somehow less than real? Probably not, though some of us might still prefer the brick and mortar store alternative.

The Blurring Boundaries

Beginning with the Internet revolution of the ‘90s through the development of Web 2.0, our lives have continually expanded to occupy virtual spaces. In Second Life, we bought virtual houses with real money; when playing FarmVille, we woke up in the middle of the night to save our virtual grapes from rotting. Does today’s dualism make our lives inherently schizoid?

Take geotagging, for instance. On the one hand it combines a physical element with cyberspace chatter, but does it also blur those boundaries? A sociological study of a very interesting experimental social game localized to the streets of Tokyo, for example, shows how "real-life" politeness affects the response of gamers to the actual proximity of others in their group.

In a world where technology intervenes to enhance, or at least to modify our everyday experiences and the physical environment around us, social science studies of technology will be a powerful and invaluable tool to help designers, technologists, marketers, media, lawyers and consumer rights activists alike.

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, maxuser