Movable type clearly defined authors' images and the contours of their writings. It seems that we are now reverting to the amorphous text space of the age of manuscripts. In each sequence, players make choices according to their whims within a set framework. The open-ended stories are constructed by means of mode selection links. Yet we are still reading books, though not the sort of books people once read.
Readers enjoy drifting through an endless text space.
Therefore, attempts on the part of educators to force schoolchildren to read more serious books will probably backfire because, ultimately, students may come to view this sort of unpopular reading as an unpleasant activity. In fact, French experiments intended to encourage students to read meticulously by teaching them structural analysis, rhetoric and similar techniques have proved counterproductive, actually causing young people to distance themselves from reading. The cavalier style, or schizoid tinkering, as it was referred to, of the proponents of New Academism is establishing a firm foothold in the halls of Japan's academia. This casual, drifting style of reading has affected even scholarly papers. For instance, products of modern knowledge such as footnotes and endnotes, which both supported the argument stated in the text and served as indicators of scholarship, are being eschewed in recent years on the grounds that they are nothing more than representations of intellectuals' repressed egos.