Conclusion: We Have Always Been Users

Abstract

In the introduction to this book I suggested that users of digital resources require different sets of skills to readers of print. Positing a distinction between digital objects and digital resources founded on their relationship to one another, I argued that not only are digital objects different from the non-digital objects they purport to represent, but it is these differences that are exploited when digital objects are utilized in resources. When we talk about reading, we usually do so in the restricted sense of interpreting words on the page. However, as reiterated in the frequent laments for the death of the book, the experience of reading also incorporates a range of non-linguistic elements, whether this is the weight of the volume, the feel of the paper, the appearance of the page or the circumstances (i.e. time and place) of reading itself. When we think of reading, we take for granted these non-linguistic aspects and instead focus on the act of deciphering linguistic signs. According to this limited definition of reading, we read when we use digital resources and we read in the same way. However, when those overlooked aspects of reading are restored, we can see that the interpretation of linguistic codes is dependent on a whole set of other contingent practices that also operate to create meaning. We still read linguistic codes when we use digital resources, but the meaning of those codes, as well as how we interpret them, is dependent upon a set of operations that, because they exploit the digital properties of objects, are radically different to those of print.