Hypertextual reading: What's the difference?

A increasing chorus of voices in the last few years has been telling us that the book is dead, and that hypertext and hypermedia will bring about fundamental changes in reading and writing. Also in prospect are radical changes in learning: the introduction of the computer will force teachers to rethink their practices, while students will be empowered to learn in new ways. Although this perspective is now common, it may also be misleading. The issue should perhaps be framed differently: given what we know about reading and writing, and the psychological processes that support them, how effectively does hypertext electronically embody those processes? To what extent does hypertext change these processes, or promote some component process to a more prominent role? Put this way, the issue moves away from the implications of facilitating a technological development that has come to seem inevitable, however desirable that development may turn out to be. Instead the question is how well do we currently understand those underlying processes. Until we have some convincing answers to this question the impact of hypertext on reading or writing must be unpredictable: we cannot be sure whether we are supercharging the process or throwing a monkey-wrench into it.