Get ready for a landmark shift in human mental and social environments: Google is getting set to release Internet eyeglasses.

As augmented reality (AR) technology improves and is mass marketed we will increasingly create and personalize our own social worlds. When AR is merged with facial recognition technology, the possibilities become extraordinary. Think Facebook 2.0, in 3D, overlaying real life. Certain people on the street will be accentuated based on chosen characteristics (maybe their body will be outlined in red or blue, or a star or halo will hang over their head) while others can be de-emphasized, dehumanized, or otherwise transmogrified. Architecture, advertising, even the sky can be structured and painted based on personal tastes, just as your computer desktop is today.

It will begin with AR glasses and continue with AR contact lenses. As our subjectivities are restructured, the ways in which we perceive the world will become less similar. We will need to ask ourselves new (and old) questions about the degree to which we want to engage with these media, about what is gained and what is lost in our social relationships, about what it means to share an environment and live as a society, and so on.

For a good idea of the direction augmented reality is headed, take a look at Japanese architect Keiichi Matsuda’s short films.

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