(※) a new hope
Before you speak, you should listen. A lot of consumption is that way. I use my iPad to read news, books, things that (I believe and hope) help my synapses fire in new ways. Get new ideas, new perspectives. Oh, and did i mention I plan to do all my reading in grad school on my iPad? Saving some trees and all that…
To simply discount a device as a consumption-only toy is shortsighted. In this age of reblogging and retweeting incessantly and MTV admitting to not being about music anymore, one might feel that all consumption is this trivial and short-lived.
To say the iPad is nothing but a gimmick, a toy for those in desperate need of always eating up ‘content’ is to insult creators everywhere. If artists copy and steal, then the process of creation involves as much consumption as possible. Creators need to go through much more content than anybody else, because they need to see what’s already out there, how others approached similar problems. Designers spend hours going through tons of websites or magazines, getting ideas by seeing what’s already out there.
So while not all consumers create, all creators consume. A lot. In that sense any device that improves and simplifies that process is part of creation, just a much as a trip to art galleries is part of a painter’s next piece. People don’t make useful things in a vacuum. And if an iPad helps creators stay in touch with the pulse of their world, we should be thankful. It means we will never be short on things that inspire us.
