Reading With Our Thumbs: Scrolling Turns the Page on Reading Habits

At a certain point, I confess, I stopped turning pages. Books and magazines piled up on my bedside table while, glued to my phone, I scrolled happily through my reading matter—sometimes digital versions of the very same spurned pages on my night table.

WHY?

(Think AI is bad for authors? The worst is yet to come.)

Well, my phone is lighter, and I don’t need a reading light that might waken my spouse … but it’s not that.

When I read on my phone, there are hyperlinks to further material to expand my understanding of what I’m reading; or even if it’s “just text,” I know that on my phone, Google, Wikipedia, and infinite resources are just a swipe and a click away.

I had this very much in mind when I sat down to write my cyber novel, DevilsGame.

But what is a cyber novel exactly?

It’s a book that lives entirely in cyberspace; there are no printed copies. The text includes hyperlinks to external websites, illustrations, pop-ups, and other media that further flesh out the story, making it interactive.

In the case of DevilsGame, embedded in the text are links to websites and pop-up illustrations created especially to expand the story, as well as links to actual news and informational sites that set the story in a rich, real context.

In contrast to a printed tome, the reader of a cyber novel will be frequently invited to decide—thumbs up or thumbs down—whether to click a link or continue reading the linear story. The reader participates in shaping the story and chooses how deeply to explore the enhancing material.

Also, the story is divided into bite-sized chapters, so when you are “mobile on your mobile”—riding the subway, in line at the airport, waiting for your laundry—readers can take a satisfying bite of the book.

It is fiction “to go,” no armchair or headboard bolster required.

Some folks are wary of “cyber fiction,” concerned that it plays into the multitasking, multi-distracted mode of modern life, helping breed an unserious reading public.

But I would argue it is inviting, involving fiction: You choose, moment to moment, how deeply you want to explore the story and its implications. The length of time it takes to read DevilsGame, for example, depends on how many of the links you click and how long you spend exploring the book’s specially created websites, or delving into the wealth of information that surrounds the story.

Cyber fiction is not designed to corrupt readers but rather to meet today’s readers where they are, using the language of the web denizens we’ve all become.

Are we turning the page on turning pages?

Publishers Weekly found that only 48.5% of Americans have read a book—one book—in 2022. I haven’t done a survey myself, but my subjective experience leads me to confidently state that almost every American has read their phone in the past year, probably even in the past five minutes!

A cyber novel is inclusive; it is for people who read books in print, as well as those who don’t read books. A cyber novel creeps up on you, capturing your attention click by click, scrollable page by scrollable page, until quickly and painlessly you have finished it. And voila, you have just joined the half of Americans who have read a book this year.

Print books will always have a place.

I moved to New York City years ago, when people still read newspapers on the subway. I remember the art of trying to turn the pages of my New York Times without impinging on my neighbor. On the subway today, newspapers have vanished! Instead, we are informed by our phones.

I don’t think books will vanish—whoosh!—like newspapers on the subway. In fact, on the subway, you will still find an intrepid literato or two with their heads buried in a book. Print books have a presence and a permanence; there is a sacred and safe space between their covers. A cyber novel has no spine, nothing to display on your shelf; it exists only in the digital ether.

But isn’t the test of a great book that it stays with you? That it lives in your memory and imagination? You may have shelves of books, but ones that matter have been downloaded to both your heart and mind.

Cyber fiction is future fiction.

Unlike print books, which offer passive enjoyment, cyber fiction engages and demands that you participate, that you become invested in the quest, shaping the story as you read.

And because you have been involved in making the story, it will stay with you, as part of your lived experience.

Cyber fiction may live in the ether, but once it captures your imagination, it lives in you as well.

Check out Michael Wolk’s DevilsGame here: