| Web Bookmarks as
Objects-to-Think-With STS.445 Systems and Self - Prof. Mitchel Resnick, Prof. Sherry Turkle |
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Abstract The World Wide Web ("the web") has radically changed the way in which people publish and access information. These changes have been well studied in a number of scientific and sociological investigations over the past several years. This paper aims to explore a less-closely-studied instance of web-induced change: the change in individuals' information-organization and record-keeping techniques. Specifically, this paper investigates individuals' use of "web bookmarks." Interviews with several university students discuss their use of bookmarks and their web-browsing styles. From the interview results, the main uses of web bookmarks are defined. An analysis of bookmark usage also examines how the bookmark concept influences interaction with other parts of the Internet and other people; what bookmarks' larger-scale effects on users are. It is further theorized that different patterns of bookmark usage give type indications as to different web browsing styles, which in turn indicate different personality types in much the same way as observing children at play yields separation of personality types. Studying individuals' usage of web bookmarks as "objects-to-think-with," therefore, can be a useful and novel way to approach epistemological analysis.
Much of the world's information is now available through one gigantic networked library -- the World Wide Web (or, simply, "the web"). Information is made available by computer servers around the world in the form of discrete "pages" (or "sites"); by knowing an individual page's address, such as http://web.mit.edu, one can retrieve its contents, and its formatting, using a computer application called a web browser (such as Netscape Navigator). Pages are linked to one another using hypertext and hyperlinked graphics and buttons; navigation need not, therefore, proceed by manual entry of address after address, but by following a series of hyperlinks between pages (5). A web-like system of information organization was first envisioned by MIT professor Vannevar Bush in a 1945 article for The Atlantic Monthly entitled "As We May Think" (2). In discussing the problems of information selection, Bush maintained that the primary difficulty in organizing huge amounts of information is not the sheer amount of information, nor that existing technology is insufficient; the problem is that the traditional paradigm of organization is wrong:
The real heart of the matter of selection, however, goes deeper than a lag in the adoption of mechanisms by libraries, or by a lack of development for their use. Our ineptitude in getting at [information] is largely caused by the artificiality of systems of indexing. When data of any sort are placed in storage, they are filed alphabetically or numerically, and information is found (when it is) by tracing it down from subclass to subclass. It can be in only one place, unless duplicates are used; one has to have rules as to which path will locate it, and the rules are cumbersome. Having found one item, morever, one has to emerge from the system and re-enter on a new path.Bush goes on to introduce a machine-concept he calls the "memex"; a device employing dry photography technology to view and organize information in precisely the associative manner he describes. The modern personal computer linked to the web, though employing digital rather than photographic technology, can be viewed as an incarnation of Bush's memex idea, and the web itself can be seen as a system of associative information organization that adheres to the principles he enumerated. Web browsers provide a means of indexing known as "bookmarks." A desired page's address may be "bookmarked" by invoking a certain command; the address is then added to a so-called list of bookmarks. The user can display the list of bookmarks; the list, though it stores the actual hypertext address of each page, displays on screen the given title of each page. (As an example, if I bookmarked http://web.mit.edu, that site would be displayed as "Massachusetts Institute of Technology" on my bookmarks list.) More advanced users can organize, edit, and delete their bookmarks. The indexing scheme envisioned by Bush to be used in conjunction with the memex is similar. However, Bush goes beyond simply describing how indexing would take place; he predicts typical user behavior:
There is, of course, provision for consultation of [information] by the usual scheme of indexing. If the user wishes to consult a certain book, he taps its code on the keyboard, and the title page of the book promptly appears before him.... Frequently-used codes are mnemonic, so that he seldom consults his code book; but when he does, a single tap of a key projects it for his use.... A special button transfers [the user] immediately to the first page of the index. Any given book of his library can thus be called up and consulted with far greater facility than if it were taken from a shelf. Bush's prediction of typical user indexing behavior, as applied to the web, does not hold true for all users in all cases. In fact, there is no one typical indexing behavior. As demonstrated by a series of interviews conducted with university students in the fall of 1998, web users employ web bookmarks in a variety of different ways, for a variety of different purposes, and in order to facilitate a variety of browsing styles.
In order to measure the extent to which users' bookmarking behavior adhered to Bush's prediction of such behavior, several interviews were conducted with a rather experienced assortment of web users -- university students. All interviews were carried out in informal settings, and no scientific or systematic observation of interviewees' web browsing habits were carried out. Interviewees were simply taken at their word, and trusted to provide an accurate description of their web browsing styles and their usage of bookmarks. The term "daily browse" was coined to mean the regular, ongoing (daily) browsing of a given set of sites. That is, if every day User X browsed Site A, Site B, and Site C, Sites A, B, and C would constitute User X's "daily browse." (Note: All interviewees were assigned pseudonyms.) Erwin Erwin is a senior at MIT. His computer recently experienced a data loss, and the bookmarks file he had been building for several years could not be retrieved. At first, he had considered this event "tragic," for the bookmarks list had contained a number of sites that he thought he would not otherwise find again. Furthermore, a number of sites he frequently used were contained within his bookmarks list, and he initially deplored this loss of convenience. Later, his attitude changed, and his despair at losing his bookmarks changed to annoyance; he would have to devote "considerable" time and energy to re-organizing them. He had had his bookmarks organized into a "coursework" section that contained addresses of MIT course web pages, a "computer" section containing computer-related page addresses, an "entertainment" section, etc. He is confident that he can find the addresses again and reconstruct his bookmarks list -- if he has the time. Some sites that he had bookmarked no longer exist, and some he does not think he can find, but this latter group he deems unimportant, because "if they were important," he reasons, "I could find them again." He does have a daily browse, although most of the sites that comprise the daily browse are not in his bookmarks list; he simply enters the sites' addresses manually. One or two sites that used to comprise his daily browse he did have listed in his bookmarks file; when he lost his bookmarks, he stopped visiting those sites. "I know their addresses," he says, "but for some reason I just don't visit them every day any more. I guess it's because I really didn't need to visit them in the first place -- but they were up there [at the top of the bookmarks-list display on screen], so I went to them." Ronnie Ronnie is a senior at NYU. She does have a daily browse, but does not rely upon bookmarks, preferring instead to simply type in the addresses of frequently-visited sites. She has visited her favorite sites so often, she remembers their addresses, and has no need to bookmark them. Instead, she uses bookmarks to flag sites she happens upon and finds "interesting," but does not want to investigate at the time of discovery. Later, when she has more time, she reviews her list of bookmarks and visits the bookmarked sites. "The bookmarks list is a total record of the places I've been on the web," she says. Once she bookmarks an interesting-looking site and investigates it, she usually does not return to that site. But its bookmark remains in her bookmarks file, a permanent testament both to her visit and to the fact that she found a particular site interesting. She does maintain some bookmarks for convenience purposes -- for example, the CNN New York weather forecast page, which has an address too long to remember. But these are the exception, not the rule. Of all the interviewees, Ronnie is the only one without a high-speed Ethernet connection to the web. She herself pointed this out, theorizing that it may be one of the reasons why "I really don't look at the web that much anyway." David David is an MIT senior of notable computer proficiency. He classifies his bookmarks list as "very important," and in fact published the list as a web page itself. That way, no matter what computer he is using, he always has access to his master bookmarks list -- rather than to a local, independently created copy. "Losing my bookmarks list is one of the worst things that could happen to me, right after losing my e-mail," he says. He has a daily browse and has organized his bookmarks list so the six or seven sites he visits regularly appear conveniently at the top of the on-screen list display. In addition to this convenience, he has organized his bookmarks into separate sub-sections, much like Erwin, but maintains them with greater fastidiousness, regularly organizing and re-organizing them. David bookmarks pages for which he can't remember the address. He bookmarks sites he knows might be useful in the future, much like Ronnie, and he also bookmarks sites he thinks he may forget. He is adamant about keeping his "primary" bookmarks organized (these include those that comprise his daily browse). His "supplementary" bookmarks, however, are far less important. Like Ronnie's bookmarks, David's supplementary bookmarks provide a chronological listing of sites that have at one point interested him. He calls these bookmarks "vestigial" and does not organize them with the same fervor as his primary bookmarks. Still, he says, "the stuff that's there has a reason for being there," and he is usually loath to delete bookmarks, even if a particular bookmark has no immediate meaning to him. Melissa Melissa, a junior at MIT, has a daily browse but does not use bookmarks to list her daily-browse sites. She often bookmarks sites for particular projects, in order that she can have information on those projects readily available. When the projects are complete, the bookmarks remain. She doesn't want them to remain, but "I don't know how to take them out. I tried to find out, but nobody will tell me." Furthermore, Melissa is irritated by the necessity of maintaining multiple, independently-created local bookmarks lists on the various computers she uses. She is not proficient enough at computing to have implemented David's centralized bookmarks list; such a system sounds interesting to her but is "not worth the time." She claims not to use bookmarks often anyway, preferring instead to utilize search engines in order to find sites with information she wants. Using a search engine such as Yahoo! (http://www.yahoo.com) or AltaVista (http://www.altavista.com), she can type in desired keywords and search through the output in order to find a desired site. Since search output can consist of thousands of sites, however, all of which contain the desired text, it is difficult for her to find the site she is really looking for. Still, search engines also help her find sites she remembers visiting in the past, though she no longer remembers their addresses and did not bookmark them. Karl Karl is an MIT senior. He does not have a daily browse. His bookmarks list consists primarily of sites containing classwork and other such information. He checks his classes' web sites frequently and values the convenience provided by his bookmarks list, but does not visit other sites on a "regular basis." When he finds a "cool site," he bookmarks it so he can look at it in more detail later; once he investigates a bookmarked site in detail, he rarely returns to it, but does not delete the bookmark. "Every now and then" he cleans his bookmarks, organizing them into sub-sections like Erwin and David. "I used to do that more when I was a freshman and sophomore and had more time," he says. Sometimes he deletes bookmarks. If his bookmarks list were lost, "it wouldn't kill me," he says. He frequently uses other computers and has thus learned to find important sites without relying on bookmarks. To find sites, he either uses search engines or starts from the main page of a well-organized site. For instance, to find information about one of his MIT classes, he goes to MIT's home page, which has an easily-remembered address (http://web.mit.edu). Then, he navigates through the site, clicking on labeled hyperlinks, until he finds his class's site. Example: MIT home page, Academics section, classwork subsection, class page. "I've memorized most of the important sites anyway," he says. Stephen Stephen is an MIT graduate student. He has a daily browse, but does not use bookmarks as an aid. He uses bookmarks primarily to keep his classes' web addresses convenient, to remember long addresses, and to organize his research and project work. Often, he does not bookmark sites he thinks he will be able to find again. But sometimes sites employ applications that automatically append a series of numbers to a page's address, making it impossible to memorize; he bookmarks those. Mostly, he feels he utilizes bookmarks for convenience. He doesn't ever delete them, even though he knows how to. "Some of them are vestigial," he says, using David's word. He shrugs. "So what?" He claims not to organize his bookmarks, and says he knows where individual bookmarks are in the bookmarks list. He therefore has no need for subsections like Erwin, David or Karl. Stephen uses multiple computers, like Melissa, and therefore has multiple, independently-created local bookmarks lists. "They overlap a little," he says, "but it really doesn't matter." David's centrally-served master bookmarks list does not particularly appeal to Stephen. Jonathan Jonathan, a senior at MIT, claims to use the web principally to obtain pornography. His daily browse consists not of news or weather sites, but of porn sites. For some of these, he uses bookmarks; for others, he does not. "The ones that are easy to remember, I don't bookmark," he says. He does, however, bookmark what he calls "meta-lists," that is, lists of sites. That way, "one bookmark takes me to a million sites, and I don't have to remember each one individually." He does not bookmark his class web pages -- "they're easy to remember or find." He doesn't know how to delete bookmarks, but is not particularly bothered by that, claiming to maintain a very small list. If Jonathan lost his bookmarks list, he would not be upset. In fact, he said, "I could probably regenerate it. ... I could regenerate it."
The interview analysis can be divided into several parts -- the uses of bookmarks, the effects of bookmark usage, and the type indications of bookmark usage. Uses Bookmarks are used for several different purposes. Explaining the different uses helps to shed light on some of the phenomena that surround bookmark usage in general. Bookmarks as memory aids. Almost all respondents mentioned that they use bookmarks in order to remember site addresses they otherwise would not remember. Stephen, for instance, bookmarks sites with complicated numerical addresses. Some respondents, however, in particular Ronnie and Karl, also noted that they sometimes bookmark sites because they would otherwise forget the entire site, not just its address. That is, unless they bookmarked the site, they would forget it existed. Bookmarking "interesting" sites that are examined once seems to be a consequence of this kind of behavior, and indeed Ronnie and Karl both have lists of bookmarks David calls "vestigial"; the bookmarks provide a history of their visits, but no longer serve a useful purpose. Most users seem reluctant to discard or delete bookmarks they no longer use. They have formed a close personal connection with their lists of bookmarks. Often, User A will find User B's computer a bit foreign, even if Users A and B have the same web browser -- the difference is in the list of bookmarks. Each user prefers to have all of his or her knowledge available at hand -- and that knowledge, a fraction of what is available on the web, is often represented by an individual's bookmarks list. When the bookmarks are not available, a user can be agitated, even if most of the desired information can be found by other means, such as search engines. An analogy to physical books helps explain user attachment to web bookmarks. A bibliophile takes pride in the library he or she has created over time, and feels secure within the information framework he or she has made available for personal use. Similarly, users of web bookmarks are, in bookmarking sites, essentially creating their own personal virtual libraries; these have meaning (4). There are major differences between web bookmarks and physical libraries (and bookmarks), however. First, a physical bookmark exists in material space; a person can touch it, move it, and otherwise manipulate it. This sort of "concrete" manipulation, thought to be important to early learning processes by Clements and McMillan (3), likely lends itself to the establishment of emotional ties between the user and the bookmark. Perhaps more importantly, while web bookmarks and physical bookmarks are both placeholders -- indicating a piece of information of interest -- physical bookmarks are always present among the actual information being bookmarked. In contrast, web bookmarks lists are entirely separate from the information they indicate; bookmarks lists are discrete computer files that are saved locally, apart and distinct from the web. However, since users also establish emotional ties with their web bookmarks lists, the crucial factor seems not to be concrete manipulability but a sense of personal ownership. It follows that users of personal physical libraries are in fact more attached to the fact that they have created personal libraries than they are to the libraries themselves as possessions. This attachment to bookmarks helps explain why Erwin and David regard the loss, or the potential loss, of their bookmarks list as catastrophic. The list's loss would mean the loss of useful information, and the loss of a helpful navigational structure. More than that, though, losing the bookmarks list would be the loss of a connection to the web, an established personal tie that is more meaningful than the bookmarks themselves. Thus, bookmarks help users to remember sites' addresses, the sites themselves, and where users have been (what sites they have seen). They also help to "personalize" the web a bit; the history created by bookmarks lists gives the appearance of a personal library carved out within the web. Vannevar Bush would define this personal library as the sum of the trails (links) between individual elements visited by a user; the bookmarks list would thus be the library's inventory or Dewey Decimal System. Bookmarks as convenience devices. Again, all respondents agreed that bookmarks were extremely convenient to use. By eliminating the need to remember long addresses, or to keep slips of paper or separate computer documents listing site addresses, users are able to increase both their efficiency at work and their satisfaction. For instance, if a user bookmarks a class web site, the site is easily accessed during subsequent web-browsing sessions simply by invoking the bookmark, rather than beginning a new search for the site. But some users eschew this convenience. Users like Melissa believe that the convenience of having readily available bookmarks is outweighed by the initial time investment required to create the bookmarks; perhaps her relative difficulty with computers, and her frustration, also plays a part. Some users dispute the convenience of bookmarks because some sites, they say, have easily-remembered addresses that are "not worth" bookmarking. Depending on the perspective one takes, users are either quick or slow to maximize their potential convenience. On the one hand, bookmarking an interesting web site is easy, involving only a simple mouse click. Most users, such as Ronnie, David and Karl, take advantage of this ease, bookmarking sites they believe they may like to investigate further at some future time. The nature of web bookmarks lends itself well to this sort of activity, which affords the construction of a giant list. Bookmarks do not afford organization or deletion quite as well -- those tasks are made far less convenient within web browsers. This lack of affordance is likely why even experienced computer users, such as Jonathan, do not or cannot delete, or even sort, their bookmarks. Users are quick to perceive a lack of affordance as an inconvenience, especially when contrasted to other activities that are much more conveniently afforded -- in other words, because bookmark deletion is made more inconvenient than bookmark creation, users are apt to perceive bookmark deletion as inconvenient, even if it is so only in comparison to the more easily afforded activity of creation. On the other hand, some users regard even the conveniently afforded activity of bookmark creation as too inconvenient for their liking. These users, such as Melissa, do not often use the web, or use it only lightly or infrequently. For them, perhaps the creation of bookmarks is in fact not worth the time. But since most users, even casual web surfers, rely on several principal sites (Melissa herself admitted to using a handful of class and research project web pages most frequently), there must be another reason for the lack of interest in bookmarks. To some extent, this reason probably stems from intimidation -- that is, the web represents a major body of information, the organization system of which is not clearly defined and not easily indexed. Users who are intimidated by the prospect of finding information within the web are likely to remain casual surfers; by way of comparison, users who develop facility with the web's organization are likely to become heavily web-dependent and dependent on their customized bookmarks lists as well (as described in the previous section; also see below). Bookmarks as navigational assistants. Web surfers can use bookmarks as powerful navigation aids that help them find and remember the location of desired information. For instance, Jonathan bookmarks what he calls "meta-lists" -- web sites that are lists of other web sites. One bookmark, therefore, leads him to a rich repository of information, from which he can find dozens of web pages containing information (in his case, pornography) he desires. By creating bookmarks in chronological order and saving them in a chronological list (that is, without further organizing them into sub-sections), users create a historic trail of their explorations through the web, much as Vannevar Bush imagined users doing with his memex. By creating subsections, such as Erwin, David and Karl, users can group related sites together, further aiding navigation. In effect, users can go beyond simply creating a bookmarks list to be a virtual library -- they can organize their bookmarks lists according to any order they choose. In other words, users can reorganize their libraries, and alter their navigational tendencies, simply by rearranging bookmarks within a web browser, rather than physically sorting books on shelves. Users can therefore customize their bookmarks lists with relative ease (see above), more maximally aiding their navigation. In terms of concrete manipulability, web bookmarks are surprisingly more tangible than might first be thought. In much the same way as children develop certain patterns for putting away their toys but sometimes fail to adhere to those patterns due to laziness or distraction, web users tend to develop certain navigational and organizational structures for their bookmarks but sometimes fail to maintain them (due, at least in Karl's case, to "not having enough time"). Finally, the act of creating and organizing bookmarks itself tends to endow upon the user a greater understanding of the general organizational principles, or lack thereof, of the web. That is to say, by creating their own navigational systems, users are able to see into the otherwise bewildering mechanisms of the web, and are able to confer greater transparency upon the system of links that holds the web together (9, 11, 12). Users can see and understand, from their own experience, what cannot otherwise be explained or taught to them about the web. Effects Bookmarks, as "objects-to-think-with," affect users and their interactions both within and outside the web in a variety of different ways. Bookmarks affect the way in which users choose to pursue information. Bookmarks can be contrasted with another of the web's navigational aids -- search engines (briefly discussed within the results of Melissa's interview). Users tend to divide into two categories. The first contains users such as Jonathan and Melissa, who do not frequently make use of bookmarks, preferring in many cases to rely either upon memory or upon search engines for finding information. The second category is composed of users like David and Ronnie, who compile lists of bookmarks and add to these lists frequently. David and Ronnie use search engines to seek out relevant or interesting sites, but often end up adding those sites to their bookmarks lists. These two patterns of information acquisition will be discussed in greater detail in the next section. For the moment, suffice it to say that bookmarks make possible this difference in behavior; bookmarks and their affordances, not just "the web" itself, are what affect the way in which users acquire and organize information. Bookmarks affect the way in which users process information. This assertion is beyond the scope of this paper, but it deserves mention nonetheless. Utilizing the web, and creating and organizing bookmarks, affords individuals greater opportunity to process information according to the "connectionist" model of cognitive development (1). Individual pieces of information, according to this model, are linked together in the brain much as information is linked together on the web, and mental activations occur associatively, much like Bush's memex model. This is a variation of the theory outlined by Marvin Minsky in The Society of Mind, where he ruminates on the existence of micro-agents within the brain that perform small information-processing tasks associatively (6). More easily understood is the idea that bookmarks, and the web in general, encourage non-linear thinking and modularity of information processing. Users, instead of searching a physical library linearly by topic and then inspecting book by book, can jump between topics and individual pages with far greater facility on the web. This change in information processing has been illustrated, among other places, in modern writing, which in many ways reflects a new modular "cut-and-paste" sort of style indicative of non-linear thought. Bookmarks affect users' interactions with other users. Users' bookmarks affect their interactions with other users in several ways. Perhaps most significantly, some users publish their bookmarks as web pages, making them accessible to anyone. Such pages are often titled "links pages"; they provide a listing of sites the user thinks are interesting or worthwhile. This technique is more oriented to others than David's similar method of keeping a master bookmarks list on a central server, which is done primarily for his own use. Bookmarks thus become a context in which conversations between users can take place. Lists of bookmarks can become references to information that is passed between users, and can form the basis of interaction. Type Indications Different bookmark usage patterns are indicative of different web browsing styles. in the same way that children, by studying their play habits, can be characterized as "dramatists," "patterners," or a mixture of types (10), and programmers can be characterized as "top-down planners" or "bricoleurs" (7, 11, 12). In the previous section, it was stated that users tend to divide into two categories when it comes to bookmarks -- those that do not use them frequently (preferring to rely upon memory or search engines), and those that do. These two categories, which are representative of distinct web browing patterns, can be considered "hunters" and "gatherers," respectively. To generalize somewhat from the interview examples in this paper, hunters must actively search for information whenever it is needed, either by employing search engines or attempting to remember informative or useful web sites. In contrast, gatherers constantly accumulate and record information by adding pages to their bookmarks lists. The interviewees' comments lend themselves fairly well to classification. For instance, David is a prototypical gatherer, accumulating web bookmarks and keeping them even when he reorganizes his bookmarks list and realizes that some bookmarked sites are no longer useful, or no longer exist. He would view the loss of his bookmarks list as a tragedy. Ronnie and Erwin are also gatherers, although they are less dependent upon their bookmarks lists and feel more comfortable seeking out new information. Jonathan, too, has gatherer tendencies, but only to a limited extent: instead of maintaining a detailed map, as it were, that tells him where information is, he maintains something else that tells him where that map itself is located. Karl and Stephen have greater hunter tendencies. Even though they maintain lists of bookmarks, primarily relating to coursework, they do not often use or organize them, preferring instead to seek out particular information on a mission-specific basis. Melissa is also a hunter, and her rationale for being so probably results in part from irritation at the fact that if she were a gatherer, she would have to gather information into multiple, independent bookmarks lists, one for each computer she works on. David's central-server technique would help her, but she has no interest in furthering her technical proficiency. But gatherers are also hunters, to some extent; all users are, to one degree or another, a mixture of hunters and gatherers, since all users at one time or another actively pursue information and then store it in some form. Observing patterns of bookmark usage simply provides a convenient means by which the differences in information-processing types can be observed and compared. Other classification metaphors work well also; the hunter/gatherer one is simply presented as an example. Another example would be to classify users into "map-makers" and "dead-reckoners," which would correspond with gatherers and hunters, respectively. The example of Jonathan nicely illustrates the map-maker metaphor; although not as much of a map-maker as, say, David, Jonathan maintains a sort of meta-map that he consults to aid his navigation. Contrariwise, users such as Stephen and Melissa could be considered dead-reckoners, since they prefer to navigate using search engines and easily-remembered, "landmark" web addresses, from which they can further find their way. Why are some web users hunters, and others gatherers? Is Piaget's theory of genetic epistemology correct -- that learning mechanisms are inborn, a property of biology (8)? The answer is unclear. But analogous studies into the play of children, in which "dramatist" and "patterner" behaviors were observed, provide the framework for a future, similar analysis of web bookmark usage patterns (10). From such an analysis, the reasons for different bookmark usage patterns might become clearer. Finally, is it better to be more of a hunter, or more of a gatherer? The question is similar in tone to "Is it better to be a dramatist or a patterner?" and "Is it better to be a top-down planner or a bricoleur?" As with those cases, the "better" type of bookmarks usage depends on an individual's experience and results. Both hunters and gatherers are able to function, acquiring and processing desired information. Nobody would suggest that a hunter should become a gatherer if a hunter is able to execute tasks proficiently, successfully, and efficiently, much as an intelligent person, one hopes, would not try to make a bricoleur of a top-down planner. Differences in individual proficiency and efficiency, much as with childrens' play patterns and computer users' programming patterns, depends upon how the selected navigation and information-processing style corresponds with the individual's genetic makeup and natural inclinations of thought. A good match will yield good results; a poor one, poor results. As Shotwell says, referring to dramatist and patterner behavior observed in children, "...they seem to represent fundamentally different, but equally valid, routes toward general symbolic competence -- routes originating both in children's overall personalities and in their underlying mental structures" (10). Though web browsing does not necessarily involve "symbolic" competence per se, the remark seems, on the whole, to apply to individual users' web browsing styles just as much as it does to children's play behaviors. This paper indicates that further study of bookmarks as objects-to-think-with is warranted, for it may yield a better understanding of the different information-processing patterns and epistemological mechanisms that comprise individual thought. A more detailed scientific investigation may provide an entirely new epistemological perspective, and the results may aid in learning, teaching, web navigation, interface design, and information processing.
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