Paths and Attention
Paths in summary are the editor/author’s directed and explicit interventions in the reader’s experience of the journal. This interventionism should be seen favorably. These interventions are a way of fostering in the reader what N. Katherine Hayles calls “deep attention.” The following discussion might seem extensive, so bear with me. In her work How We Think, Hayles brings up the subject of deep attention vis-à-vis the subject of “hyper attention.” Hyper attention, according to Hayles, is associated with “hyper reading, which includes skimming, scanning, fragmenting, and juxtaposing texts” (12). Hyper reading, Hayles identifies, “is a strategic response to an information-intensive environment, aiming to conserve attention by quickly identifying relevant information, so that only relatively few portions of a text are actually read” (12). Hyper attention is a “cognitive mode that has a low threshold for boredom, alternates flexibly between different information streams, and prefers a high level of stimulation” (12). This form of attention, she clarifies, prevails without question among web users who normally attend to the various “information streams” of the internet. Deep attention, meanwhile, which is connected to close reading, is the “cognitive mode traditionally associated with the humanities that prefers a single information stream, focuses on a single cultural object for a relatively long time, and has a high tolerance for boredom” (12). Hayles goes on to suggest the need to develop pedagogical strategies that “build bridges between” deep and hyper attentive modes (12).
We would benefit profoundly in achieving a rapprochement between deep and hyper attention. If we do not take into account that our potential web audience are hyper attentive and if we instead design a journal that only demands deep attentive modes, then we could fail to communicate effectively our subject matter. Likewise, if we design a journal that is primarily geared towards hyper reading, then we would create a trifling work of pure distraction. Such a supremely hyper medial object would have “information streams” whose distractiveness renders its content as ephemeral and disposable as many of the early modern ballads. One wonders if an early modern commoner, who strolling through a crowded London street is regularly exposed to multiple “information streams,” like shouting merchants and various odors and sights and so forth, would employ a precursor or forerunner of “hyper reading” or, shall we say, “hyper listening” when hearing a ballad being sung. But I digress.
To return to the matter of reading, Hayles goes on to reference studies that concluded web navigation through hyperlinks has lead to decreased comprehension of the subject matter. Hayles concludes that the aspects of hyper reading—“clicking on links, navigating a page, scrolling down or up, and so on—increase the cognitive load on working memory” (64). “With linear reading,” an action Hayles aligns with close reading, “the cognitive load is a minimum, precisely because eye movements are more routine and fewer decisions need to be made about how to read the material and in what order” (64). In comparison to hyper readers, linear readers remember more and their comprehension does not decrease drastically.
Fostering a synergy between hyper and linear/close reading is indispensable. One of the ways we can accomplish this synergy is through Scalar’s path feature. A path segments the long-form essay into its thematic and conceptual components, thereby transforming the original work into short-form texts. The path is indeed an intervention into the reader’s experience, and its intervening principle lies in its reconstitution of the long-form original into its short-form constituents. The resultant effect among readers, I believe, is their development of short-form reading, a type of reading that engages readers into focusing in on key themes, concepts, and cruxes of the original long-form work. Of course, when I say “short-form,” I don’t literally mean “very brief.” “Short-form” is merely my attractive term referring to the long-form’s anatomization into its component parts. The path’s anatomizing and segmenting does not so much summarize and condense the original as it focalizes and magnifies the original’s composite elements. The path, for this reason, is instrumental in instilling within the audience a close attentive mode. The audience comes to regard closely and deeply what is magnified and focalized. To make the long-form “short,” in this case, is to bring to the audience’s attention the integral substructures of the long-form original.
At the same time, because the path operates in part as a hyperlink mechanism leading to other aspects of the essay, the path encourages hyper reading and hyper attention. Readers, by navigating through the essays, develop a hyper attentiveness. They come to read closely the essay’s contents only through hyper reading and attention, developing the competency to scroll, click on links, read the links, and cycle through webpages.
I may have belabored the issue of reading and attention. However, having a basic handle on the cognitive comprehension of our digital readers may be of importance to us when thinking about the structure and content of our essays. In any case, it’s crucial for us to keep in mind that paths are a very productive resource. They should be neither underestimated nor overestimated, neither underused nor overused. Paths are the means through which editors and authors cultivate within readers both deep and hyper attention.
We would benefit profoundly in achieving a rapprochement between deep and hyper attention. If we do not take into account that our potential web audience are hyper attentive and if we instead design a journal that only demands deep attentive modes, then we could fail to communicate effectively our subject matter. Likewise, if we design a journal that is primarily geared towards hyper reading, then we would create a trifling work of pure distraction. Such a supremely hyper medial object would have “information streams” whose distractiveness renders its content as ephemeral and disposable as many of the early modern ballads. One wonders if an early modern commoner, who strolling through a crowded London street is regularly exposed to multiple “information streams,” like shouting merchants and various odors and sights and so forth, would employ a precursor or forerunner of “hyper reading” or, shall we say, “hyper listening” when hearing a ballad being sung. But I digress.
To return to the matter of reading, Hayles goes on to reference studies that concluded web navigation through hyperlinks has lead to decreased comprehension of the subject matter. Hayles concludes that the aspects of hyper reading—“clicking on links, navigating a page, scrolling down or up, and so on—increase the cognitive load on working memory” (64). “With linear reading,” an action Hayles aligns with close reading, “the cognitive load is a minimum, precisely because eye movements are more routine and fewer decisions need to be made about how to read the material and in what order” (64). In comparison to hyper readers, linear readers remember more and their comprehension does not decrease drastically.
Fostering a synergy between hyper and linear/close reading is indispensable. One of the ways we can accomplish this synergy is through Scalar’s path feature. A path segments the long-form essay into its thematic and conceptual components, thereby transforming the original work into short-form texts. The path is indeed an intervention into the reader’s experience, and its intervening principle lies in its reconstitution of the long-form original into its short-form constituents. The resultant effect among readers, I believe, is their development of short-form reading, a type of reading that engages readers into focusing in on key themes, concepts, and cruxes of the original long-form work. Of course, when I say “short-form,” I don’t literally mean “very brief.” “Short-form” is merely my attractive term referring to the long-form’s anatomization into its component parts. The path’s anatomizing and segmenting does not so much summarize and condense the original as it focalizes and magnifies the original’s composite elements. The path, for this reason, is instrumental in instilling within the audience a close attentive mode. The audience comes to regard closely and deeply what is magnified and focalized. To make the long-form “short,” in this case, is to bring to the audience’s attention the integral substructures of the long-form original.
At the same time, because the path operates in part as a hyperlink mechanism leading to other aspects of the essay, the path encourages hyper reading and hyper attention. Readers, by navigating through the essays, develop a hyper attentiveness. They come to read closely the essay’s contents only through hyper reading and attention, developing the competency to scroll, click on links, read the links, and cycle through webpages.
I may have belabored the issue of reading and attention. However, having a basic handle on the cognitive comprehension of our digital readers may be of importance to us when thinking about the structure and content of our essays. In any case, it’s crucial for us to keep in mind that paths are a very productive resource. They should be neither underestimated nor overestimated, neither underused nor overused. Paths are the means through which editors and authors cultivate within readers both deep and hyper attention.
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