The Fiend of Hypertext or The Visualization of Inert Knowledge:

Introduction

The radical nature of hypertext lies not only in its ability to link vast resources of information into a matrix, but to incorporate multiple types of information both visual and textual into that matrix. The use, and cognitive abuse, of hypertext, particularly when compared with standard printed text, is intimately connected to this double nature.

Research has shown a certain amount of uneasiness is involved in using hypertext, or at the very least a difficulty in immediately utilizing it to its full capacity (Rouet and Levanon, 1996; Black, Wright, Black and Norman, 1992; Wright,1991; Lackman,1989). I believe this is due to two underlying reasons. First, there is a feeling of loss while navigating through the vast amounts of information, the "disorientation effect". (Rouet and Levanon: p.13) This nagging feeling of blindness seems ultimately to spring from a lack of any cohesive structure which we can grasp as a frame, and within which we can create meaningful associative links. Secondly, this uneasiness is exacerbated by the integration of visual elements into the whole (Tolva, 1995; Mitchell, 1994; Updike, 1989; Parsons, 1987). As children, we are indoctrinated into the cult of the word, and learn to treat images as decorative, simple, and as anything but an alternate dialect of our culture.

Thus, we as hypertext users are impeded in our use and understanding of hypertext not by the inherent structure of hypertext itself, but by the fact that hypertext is created and used by minds weaned on standard texts, and hence both the creation and use of hypertext tend to mimic standard, printed form. As Rouet and Levanon state: "Subjects have had no prior knowledge or practice of reading nonlinear materials . . .[and] research on printed text provide ample evidence that text comprehension . . .requires sophisticated cognitive strategies . . " (p.19) The frequent division of hypertext pages into lists, and lists into chapters, as well as a tendency to use dull, monotonous HTML programming, and the insertion of images from icons to video clips as cluttered, and seemingly meaningless decoration, all combine to render hypertext as “inert knowledge” - information without understanding. (Bereiter, Scardamalia: p.77, referring to Whitehead)