The iPad Is Not A Slam Dunk, Not Without Us

Yesterday I realized that I have beenreading the same book on my iPad for the past five weeks. DavidGrossman’s To the End of the Land is a book I would haveordinarily completed in five days, not five weeks. I haven’turgently consumed any books since I began reading them on my iPad.

It’s not an electronic thing. Iwasn’t sluggish with my Kindle reader. When I had it, I movedthrough books with pace.

This is an iPad thing, too much of agood thing, where I am distracted by an experience that is immediate,rich, and seductively pretty.

The curse of choice

Here is how it works for me. I returnfrom the gym and decide to read my book. I open up the iPad, but afew minutes later I tap the email icon. After that, I devote twentyminutes to Wordswith Friends, a Scrabblesque experience in the cloud. I return tothe Grossman book, but find myself wondering what’s happening inLibya and at Padres Spring Training. Off to Twitter and the New YorkTimes.

It’s been thirty minutes and myinternal clock is hungering for email. Once there, I see that afriend has pointed me to a short video about ahapless young Brit who wants to be a pilot. His unlikely careerladder starts in fast food sales, supported by on the job coaching,all fueled by his pilot dream. I send the video with a comment to oneof my clients, who points me to the nextvideo in the aspiring pilot’s saga. He has earned a promotion.

Back to Grossman’s book. Ten minutesinto my reading, I realize I don’t know how the market isperforming today. While on the Fidelity site, I am reminded thatthere might be benefits to converting to a Roth IRA. Twominutes on that topic and my eyes have glazed over.

Back to the Grossman book and, withPandora in the background, I enjoy it for nearly twenty minutesbefore I remember that my eight opponents on Words with Friends mightbe waiting for me to make my moves. Now it feels like it is time tocheck email again. But wait, there’s that app that will allow me to look more closely at what AnnetteBening was wearing at the Academy Awards. The visuals are so vividthat I can almost feel the fabric on the dress.

Oh, and has Qaddafi fallen yet? Bettercheck. Twitter again. Does NPR have anything relevant? What about Newser, with its scary tagline: READ LESS, KNOW MORE.

We need great design more than ever

Obviously, I like my iPad. But is itgood for me? Will it be good for students in schools, salespeople incompanies, and analysts in government?

It has encouraged me to be more like ahummingbird than a woodpecker, as it fuels every inclination I havetowards impatience and skimming. The Allison with a history fordigging into books and topics is distracted daily by fleetingmatters. With the iPad in my life, I am more engaged in consumptionthan production.

If I am behaving more like ahummingbird than a woodpecker, what of the elementary school childrenwho are handed iPads and encouraged to feast? I’ve seen articlesand postings about at-risk youth, sales people, rural children, innercity boys, engineers, and medical students whose performance willsurely improve when the iPad is introduced into their lives. Justthis morning, the day after the introduction of the iPad 2, FastCompany touts howthe iPad 2 will revolutionize education. Those are their exactwords — with promises of benefits from the Detroit schools to dulllecture halls.

Little of this goodness will happenautomatically, not without great design and a deft touch. As seen inone day in my life, it’s easy for iPad speed, beauty, reach andoptions to turn into an attractive nuisance. Choice is good, toomany choices is just that, too many choices. How will we leveragethese abundant strengths while laying down guard rails?