Hyperlinks to the Past

A wood-and-bronze torii gate. Image in the public domain.

The newest article is up! It concerns the wonderful adaptation of Kakariko Village found  in Breath of the Wild, and its relations to early Japanese, pre-Buddhist architecture. 

On an unrelated note, I've had a few people ask me why there are no hyperlinks to be found in my articles. There are many reasons for this. Not only do I find that they interrupt the visual flow of the piece, and mar the clean aesthetics I strive to create, but they are great distractions to our already-distracted minds. This is perhaps the most important reason.

Some research (though there is not much on the topic) shows that the use of hyperlinks in articles, e-books, and their ilk radically interrupts our engagement in a piece. (If curious, look into the work of Nicholas Carr.) Each hyperlink, while potentially useful, also represents a Carrollian rabbit hole of twisting, shifting information. Each thing we click on reveals a new visual world to take in, changing our attention momentarily, separating us from the work with which we are engaged. Each new stimulus rips us from our object of focus. And it takes us far longer than we realize to become refocused. I don't want to drag on about this, but I think it is a thing very important - that we control our own attention. Few things are as important as that. Without the ability to place our attention where we want and when, we are basically slaves to impulse and random stimuli. To that end, I try to strip this website of everything unnecessary: ads, comment sections, hashtags, etc. 

The internet is distressing because it encourages fast-paced skimming, flitting around between media, a plethora of simultaneous stimuli, and efficiency over depth, none of which is good for our psychological well-being or cultivated habits. I hope this all makes sense.

As always, I'm interested in your thoughts, as well.

- Talbot