email correspondence, seminar mailing list, September 10, 1995

Part of my physiological/emotional reaction hypertext is dizziness and anxiety. With a printed book, I experience a comforting sense of closure and a sense of control. The physicality of cuddling up with a book, closing in on it, closing out the outside world (ideally, but as I have gotten older I find it harder and harder to become engrossed in a text). As a managable, neat little package, one* can look at a book objectively, outside, generally from above, and say, okay, I've read this much, I have this much left to go, there is the end. I would argue that this holds true as well for text which attempts to be non-linear; the physical form of the printed page reinforces the notions of outside/inside, front/back, beginning/end.

The experience of hypertext is very different. The sense of control over the text is reduced. I can't see where I am going, or if I will ever see everything if I am jumping about. I fear that I have missed something important. I cannot see the text as a whole, like with a book. It's much harder to cuddle with hypertext. . . To read (receive?) hypertext induces vertigo, loss of control, etc. (Not I don't see value in becoming dizzy and anxious. Not only to I like to lose myself in a new city, but further I like to try to get lost in places I presumably know). . . .

*serindipitous effect of the sloppy grammar of email--the literate "one" is the "managable, neat little package"!