THE TABLET
If there’s one object that has received an inordinate share of our attention during this time of social distancing, it’s the tablet.
I have been using an ipad Pro, and I’ve been fascinated by the possibilities — both by the options it provides for work and creative expression and, equally compellingly, the opportunities it affords to waste time and make us unbelievably lazy.
I think a tablet computer lays bare the dilemma a lot of us have been facing, shut in at home, isolated from our friends and loved ones. Given unlimited time and the freedom to do anything, where will you direct your energies? On the one hand, you could learn a language or read War and Peace or write your impassioned memoirs. On the other, you could stream Hell’s Kitchen.
Unlike laptops, which are oriented around conventional work, or smartphones, which are too small and underpowered for real productivity, tablets seem divided between work and pleasure pretty much evenly. There are apps designed for professionals and creatives that make it possible to turn your living room into a recording studio or movie editing suite or amateur art gallery; people have used ipads to produce entire albums from scratch, to cut together feature films and to draw New Yorker covers. With one in your hands, and all its amazing stuff at your disposal, it’s not hard to feel like the only thing standing between you and some incredible creative accomplishment is sheer inclination.
The other day I downloaded an illustration app called Procreate on the advice of a colleague and spent hours drawing cartoons with the Apple Pencil. The result might not have been very good, but it was nice to feel I was making something.
And then there’s just this vast deluge of distraction — pure, endless content, across every medium, available to be streamed or downloaded or otherwise consumed on the same screen. It’s a strange sensation, knowing that you can binge- watch every episode of Tiger King on Netflix or the entirety of The Sopranos on Crave on the very same device with which Damon Albarn recorded The Fall. It would be like if your treadmill also made ice cream sandwiches.
Who has the discipline to use the device for productivity alone? Who has the confidence to use it for fun without feeling guilty? You can play about a million video games on Apple Arcade. You can also download Adobe Photoshop or imovie. Do you pick distraction or inspiration? What’s the right balance to strike between them both?
No one really knows, but tablets give us the option.