It’s been a disheartening start of the year for book-lovers. Developers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have recently invented a book system called Sensory Fiction that is designed to help readers feel a protagonist’s emotions by physically simulating the moods of a novel as one reads.
At first I was intrigued by this invention, but upon closer analysis I wonder whether these developers have ever read a book purely for enjoyment.
The device is comprised of a high-tech book and vest. That’s right, a vest that contains a heartbeat and shiver simulator, a body compression system, audio speakers and temperature controls. As the reader flips the page, the vest senses the part of the story and acts accordingly.
If the protagonist is stranded in a scorching desert, the vest will turn the heat up to allow readers a chance at heatstroke as well. If a character is trapped in a frozen lake with no way to break through the ice, the vest will not only chill your bones, but will compress your midsection with swelling airbags, sure to give claustrophobic people heart attacks.
So now, suffocation is accompanied with its own lighting system and soundtrack! What, can’t breathe? How about some daunting orchestral music?
With sensory fiction, authors would be confined to one-dimensional feelings. Happy or sad.
Of course, I exaggerate with my examples, but the real system is not too far off. A system that stimulates distress would undoubtedly cause readers discomfort and distraction from the story itself.
Apart from the hypothetical reader looking (and sounding) ridiculous, the developers’ ideological approaches are problematic, as well. They claim that the book will enhance readability, liken fiction to near-reality, and create new avenues for “sensory” authors to convey their stories.
But novels do not need to be enhanced. I am sure that any avid reader, such as myself, would agree that the entire premise of a novel is to internalize a story without the help of machines or equipment.
To read a book is to stretch the mind and allow for one’s imagination to cascade relentlessly. Reading a book should be a completely personal experience, unconstrained by airbags and temperature gauges. To truly enjoy a book, one should feel the protagonist’s emotions for oneself without them being spoon-fed by an artificial ambience.
Technology like this would not create new avenues for story conveyance; it would only restrict these avenues. Authors would not have the freedom to illustrate any complex emotions, but would be more confined to simple, one-dimensional feelings. Happy or sad. Red light or blue light.
The human mind is one that can experience multiple emotions at one time, and a novel, without wires or batteries, allows a reader to imagine exactly this, and even more.
MIT, I’m sorely disappointed with what your research has led to. Sensory Fiction is a step back, as it undermines the values of traditional books and assumes that readers are not intelligent enough to experience the moods of a novel on their own.
As one Guardian reader says online, these inventors are “sheltered, vociferously literal, deeply unimaginative nerds” and are “the last people in the world who ought to be mucking around with books.” I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Let’s leave a novel to it’s independent, imaginative reader, and save the electronic simulations for elsewhere.
Did you ever think that maybe this technology isn’t for third year English majors who already like reading books and are able to focus on just text for long periods of time and/or are able to interpret the emotions of others easily? A lot of people don’t learn by reading. By involving kinaesthetic memory by invoking bodily response through stimuli, this technology could make literature more accessible to a wider audience. Furthermore, for those with social learning disabilities that impede the ability to understand the emotions of others, this could be a valuable learning tool.