It's not all black and white.

The whole immersion versus augmentation debate is clouded by one trivial little detail. One is not the opposite of the other. The two aren't even mutually exclusive.

Traditionally these two are generally classified like this:

Augmentationists see the virtual world as a simple extension of RL. It's another space in which things can be done. Like IRC, or the Web or Twitter, or the telephone. It extends what is possible to the user, augmenting their abilities. The augmented user remains themselves throughout, and their activities are simply enhanced. The augmented love things that extend and improve their ability to accomplish.

Immersionists are described as those who see the their time in Second Life as an alternative to the real. They take on new appearances and entirely new personae, quite different to their own. Immersonists hate anything that distracts from their sense of a new, alternative universe.

That's how those are usually defined. I'm sorry, but I'm going to have to call bullshit.

Here's an article with some meat to chew on regarding the adoption of voice in SL and how it affects the old debate between immersion and augmentation.

Is this of any concern? As the piece itself mentions, there will always be a place for those who don't wish to utilize voice, or even to witness it, even at a remove. Certainly there will exist, or probably even already exist sims that effectively ban the use of voice altogether -- is this to be seen as unrealistic, or unnecessary, or excessive? Contrary to my own belief, I've found that remaining in text-only mode among those who are using voice does not mean being left out of the conversation; indeed, I've found that the conversation pauses to wait for my text message, allowing me to feel included.

Has anyone here flat-out refused to use voice? Why?

(Via http://ieet.org)