More Than Words, More Than Once

The first time my primary responsibility became working as an employee instead of a student, the position I was hired for did not fully exist. The department that I worked for had needed more help for a couple of months, but had not decided specifically where that help should be dedicated, so myself and two other undergraduates were hired under a generic title and told we would figure out what to do along the way. Fulfilling our duties while simultaneously constructing our roles was a process filled with ambiguity, sometimes frustration, and often confusion. We were brand new and did not know what situations the department had in store for us, but given that we had some degree of choice we were held accountable as if we were much more experienced employees. Our decisions were own to make and face the consequences for. Still, it was a welcome change from past jobs to be granted the agency to shape how we spent our time and what the role entailed. This transition into a workplace mirrors the experience of shifting from the position of a reader of static, printed literature to digital literature.

As a reader of digital literature, it becomes your responsibility to curate your own understanding of a narrative by investing in learning its structure as well as its contents. There are works like Pry which can be traversed superficially in thirty minutes, even though it would take hours to discover all of the hidden texts. You could stop after half an hour, but with so much information missing, your job as a reader would not have been done very well. But in many cases, the reader has no way of knowing when they have reached a point of completion, or have read the text fully. Such areas of grey are what define digital readership for me. They are also what make it most challenging. The solutions I have found to the uncomfortable ambiguity which arises from the unfamiliarity are greater investment in learning how to navigate and experience new media narratives than that which I apply to linear, printed narratives. Exploring works of unexpected formats multiple times and working through the confusion until its components become meaningful allows readers to realise the power digital literature gives them in determining their own experience, rather than only feeling lost and unproductive.

To assist with learning this new form of narrative competency and understanding its importance, I have considered that this time of transition is not unique to the birth and growth digital literature. It is reasonable to assume there were similar complications when the written tradition of storytelling began overtaking the oral, and troubled reactions surfaced from some of those who had to start reading independently rather than having literature presented to them aloud. However, just as reading a printed page to receive text has become almost second nature to many twenty-first century readers, the continuously increasing computer literacy among young populations indicates that in future generations, the majority of readers will not be phased by the prospect of fulfilling the multi-faceted and liminal duties digital narratives require of their readers, players and participants