Lures and Sinkers
Sven Birkerts (The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age) generalizes from his experience with hypertext to characterize the hypertextual environment as counter to sinking into receptivity which is what book reading does according to him.
For the effect of the hypertext environment, the ever-present awareness of possibility and the need to either make or refuse choice, was to preempt my creating any meditative space for myself.Odd. This call to the space of suspended judgement which is meditation is fine in itself but to blame the potential of choosing for wrecking any affordance for meditation seems misplaced. Reading is about making decisions. To my mind exercising judgment is present in all types of reading. Exercising judgment requires a pause and all along the reading experience are micro-moments where the reader decides to enter into the world generated by the text, continue on exploring such a world or exit from the world exploration.
| enter | hold | exit |
| y/n | y/n | y/n |
There is reading and there is reflecting upon that reading: lures and sinkers.
And so for day 1713
22.08.2011
