a Things were different back then.

Vandendorpe's book was published in French, and an English edition appeared only a decade later, in 2009. That edition was updated, but most certainly wasn't a wiki, which means that it's hard to distinguish between what Vandendorpe originally wrote and what he changed for the newer edition. I have no doubt that he changed quite a bit, since there are numerous references to web sites, or web phenomena, that weren't around in 1999.

Did his take on things also change? Most probably yes, and even hopefully yes. I'm not convinced, however, that it changed for the better. I stumbled onto Vandendorpe's book only recently, and found myself experiencing a strange sense of déja vu - yes, I'd been here before, but the direction in which Vandendorpe seemed to be heading was more backward than forward. Rather than examining how reading a hypertextual document might permit us to think differently, he tells us that we seem to be physiologically ill equipped for reading documents of this sort:
Lacking the promise of revelation in the narrative thread, readers of fragments constantly have to clear the contents of their immediate memory, reject the cognitive markers they had identified in reading the previous fragment, and recreate a context of reception that is suitable for the new fragment. This process of repeated decontextualization leads to a risk of fatigue. What is the point of continuing to click on words when one has absolutely no idea what type of text they are going to lead to? Without adequate ongoing stimulation, the initial impetus of the reader's quest is destined to be quickly exhausted. (p. 77)
I'm not well enough versed in either psychology or physiology in order to be able to verify or disprove Vandendorpe's claim of fatigue, but it seems to me to be based more on conjecture, and a resistance to a different sort of text, than on any actual experimental evidence.


Go to: It's in its DNA, or
Go to: How to write a Boidem column.