One of the files I've been continually adding clippings
(including URLs and other digital paraphernalia) to deals with the general
subject of Metaphors of the Web. The general idea is to examine
"what the web is like". Do users see it as similar to a book (and if so,
what sort of book?), perhaps to a television, maybe to a newspaper, or
(though I have no explanation for why someone might think this sort of
thing) even to a computer program. Someone once asked me, when I offered
to send an e-message for her, whether she should write out the message
she wanted me to send with STOP written between the sentences. I don't
know if she really thought that the internet was similar to the telegraph,
but it seems that that was the metaphor that was easiest for her to latch
on to.
The topic is vast, and not only because it's only vaguely
defined. It includes how comfortable we feel sitting in front of a computer
screen reading text, but also whether we expect to see only text, or demand
pictures as well. Certainly, we're not yet at the technological stage at
which we can snuggle up in bed with a nice computer screen and read a web
site - there's simply something out of place with trying to do that. Of
course few people snuggle up in bed with the encyclopaedia, and that seems
just about as out of place, so if we compare a web page to a resource book,
we don't need to worry about that particular comparison. There are numerous
sorts of printed pages: novels, poetry, reference books, magazines, newspapers,
comic books, textbooks, and more. And of course there are numerous sorts
of web pages, each with a parallel in the printed media, but also different.
Comparing a generic web page to a generic printed page simply doesn't makes
sense.
Still, we make this sort of comparison
all the time. And when we're not making comparisons outright, we're often
acting on certain assumptions that grow out of the metaphors we use. Should
a web page be read as we read a page in a book? Often I get the feeling
that web pages are purposefully prepared to be skimmed, with the clear
objective of finding a link and clicking on it.
I don't read books that way, though it is the way that I use the encyclopaedia.
Our experience with web pages has
perhaps caused us to find something lacking in the printed page. After
all, with the printed page, it's only words.
Is there anyone around today who's still satisfied with "it's only words"?
(Hey, we can even find part of the song on a web page devoted to "Encoding
the British National Corpus". I mean, sure, if we've got a book in
our hands we're willing to read it as "text only", but that's simply not
satisfying if you're connected to the internet. That's perhaps the major
problem with the wonderful project "Project
Gutenberg". Digitizing as much of the classics as possible (and anything
and everything else) is a wonderful goal, but people expect something different,
an added something, when they sit in front of their computers. As one mother,
who has an actually quite pleasant web page with the catchy title "Look,
Mommy made her own web page!", put it in the credits section of her
page: "Special thanks to these people for giving me the inspiration to
learn to do this, for without graphics it's only words!!". That's true,
of course, but it raises a strange question: Is there something wrong with
"only words"? Are we always enhancing when we add graphics to our words?
Another area in which it's worth checking out similarities
and differences is the question of what you do with a book once you finish
reading it. Though libraries are wonderful places, most of us like to have
the books we like most close by, cluttering up our shelves and making us
think that we're cultured and intelligent people. Books are our friends,
and it's nice to have friends close to us. We'll take a children's book
down from the shelf to remember a certain passage, or browse though a book
that made a big impression on us during our studies, or simply glance at
the titles on the shelf to launch a chain of thoughts and memories that
are important parts of the way we view ourselves. Numerous books on my
shelves have placemarks in them that mark passages that were significant
to me somewhere in my past. Sometimes I need to find these, and it's nice
to have them marked and available for easy reference, and sometimes it's
simply nice to browse through these books and to try and figure out when
and why I chose to mark a certain passage. The internet counterpart to
this is, of course, Bookmarks, but that analogy raises certain questions.
Do people browse their bookmarks like they browse their shelves? Is the
reminder of seeing the title of a web page, or a URL, as potent a memory
catalyst as seeing the title of a book on a shelf? We look at our books
numerous times a day, often unintentionally and inadvertently, whereas
in order to view our bookmarks we have to make a concerted effort. For
this reason alone, can the two activities possibly evoke similar responses?
As I've asked all too frequently in these columns, "so
where is all this heading"? Perhaps this extended exercise has only succeeded
in proving that my guess in the first sentence was a correct one. I've
simply bitten off more than I can chew on this topic. Still, there's an
outside chance that I've shed a little bit of light on the topic. Perhaps
this can start a discussion in which others share their own metaphors.
In the light of the fact that the ways in which we relate to technologies
grow out of our expecatations of those technologies, and our expectations
are grounded in the metaphors we use, hopefully our usage of the web can
be enhanced and improved by examining our expectations, and our metaphors,
of it. And by the way, the lack of any graphics on this page is fully intentional.
That's it for this edition. Reactions and suggestions
can be sent to:
back to the Boidem Contents Page
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From the Boidem -
an occasional column on computers and information technologies in everyday
life
June 22, 1997*:
My guess is that this month's topic is a very good case of
my biting off more than I can chew. Ordinarily when I choose a topic to
write about the topic grows out of something that's been happening on the
web or on a listserv I lurk on, or something somehow related to the reality
of my online existence. Then, after having chosen the topic, I seek out
a web of examples, hypertexting myself into an ever widening web of examples
and connected ideas. Sometimes (I admit it) I push the envelope a bit too
much in order to flesh out the topic. This time, I've got the opposite
problem.
In a recorded live performance of Dan Hicks and His Hot
Licks, a sadly forgotten "rock" band of the late sixties and early seventies,
though of course (how could they not?) they've got a web
page devoted to them, Dan introduces a song this way:
Is there something the matter with "only
words"? For a long time, it seemed that there wasn't, but with the technology
came expectations. I had no problem finding numerous copies of Shakespeare's
18th sonnet, (an AltaVista search brings up about 70 hits for "Shall
I compare thee" along with "sonnet 18", and from a somewhat more than cursory
review of those hits most of them seem to actually contain the sonnet in
its entirety). I've got to admit that I was very pleased that none of the
examples I viewed came along with a picture of a summer day. Still, hypertexter
that I am, I can't resist the temptation. Here's a picture
of a summer's day. Is it comparable to the woman (person?) to whom
Shakespeare sings? Our artist, George Shumate, put his painting on the
web so that we can view it and so that he can hopefully sell it. It's entitled
"Summer Day" and he's asking for $2500 it.
"This is a song... you know, they're all songs, right?
What are you gonna do? One song to the next, that's it folks. Don't look
for anything else."
(And that, for a change, was an unlinked aside.)Another aside:
Numerous other comparisons, or at
least jumping off points, for hyperlinked thinking, are there for the making.
I'd like to make more of them. At least one more is called for here, and
it's from the author's side, rather than from the reader's. Anyone who's
"published" a web page knows the sense of satisfaction that comes along
with seeing your page or pages occupying a real, if insignificant, niche
in the realms of cyberspace. Recently I had the opportunity to experience
the hardcopy version of that feeling. To my
surprise, they weren't comparable at all. Perhaps it's a culturally embedded
response, but seeing a book come to fruition, having it in your hands and
being able to flip through the pages, delivers a type of satisfaction on
a level much higher than that of a web page, despite the fact that only
a couple thousand copies of the book get published, whereas the web page
is "available" to the entire world. Perhaps it's culturally embedded, but
another factor seems to be at play as well. Though most of the impressive
web sites that we all ooh and aah over are the product of a group of highly
trained professionals, producing a basic web site is a rather simple procedure
that someone can do by him/herself. Though producing something by yourself
leads to a certain sort of satisfaction, the knowledge that other people
labored to produce a tangible artifact from what you originally wrote leads
to a satisfaction of a different type, and of a different caliber.
Much has been written about the immediate usability of
digitized information, but my guess is that until today only a limited
group of people have actually integrated bits into their daily lives. The
information we want is still out there, and on our shelves, on paper.