Using links to say something in themselves
Classifying our use of hyperlinks
Reading hypertexts and usability
The way we use hyperlinks changes our language at a fundamental level. Links can be used to elaborate on the points of an argument, as a route to more information, as an ironical statement or even to false information to confuse the reader. These unintended uses for links were pioneered by the Internet column, Suck (now defunct). According to Salon magazine:
Suck's writers use links not as informational resources or aids to site navigation but as a rhetorical device, a kind of subtextual shorthand. A link from a Suck article, far from illustrating a point, more often than not undercuts it. A Suck link's highlight is often a warning: Irony Ahead — do not take these words at face value. Feed's Steven Johnson analyzes it in his new book, "Interface Culture," as a kind of associative slang: "They buried their links mid-sentence, like riddles, like clues. You had to trek out after them to make the sentence cohere." [ Scott Rosenberg for Salon 21st ]
Various studies have attempted to analyse or classify our use of the link in various ways, such as Shields (2000) — a literary criticism view — and Landow (1997) from a more general literary view), through to Harrison (2002) examining rhetoric and Brown and Sellen (2001) from a design perspective. All of these reports are presented in linear form, which seems rather a shame. For an early look at hypertext presented as a hypertext, take a look at December (1996).
A look at the ergonomics of “Digital Reading Devices” or e-books can be found in Silberman (1998). Though these devices haven't really taken off, their designs have much to say about the way we use paper books, and many of these findings have been applied to reading software and hardware since, especially as PDAs and mobile phones are increasingly used for reading on the move.