Reading 4: Interface culture- Steven Johnson

Chapter 4 - Links

This was an interesting chapter and introduces the idea of how hyperlinks in the author's opinion have been overlooked in curtain ways and has yet to be exploited to their true potential. The author describes the way that surfing had been the wrong description for most internet users as he compares the term to the days of the television surfer flicking from channel to channel. It is a nice comparison as he points out the fact that he or she whom is flicking from channel to channel is doing so without making any relative links between the channel other than what is being broadcast, news, cooking program, cartoons and so on.

Whereas, hyperlinks have the potential to link relative information in turn leading the user through a path of discovery therefore the user is not surfing aimlessly instead he is making conscious choices linking from page to page.

The author describes an earlier Idea of relative linking with the example of Memex theoretical proto-hypertext computer system envisioned in 1945 by Vannevar Bush. This system would allow an individual to read a large self-contained research library add or follow associative links and notes created by that individual, or recorded by other researchers. I think that this was an interesting idea.