Why is it so boring to use the right tool for the job?
In thinking about both tablet PCs and Alone Together over the last month or so, I noted the paradigm of using the right tool for the job. To recommend using the right tool for the job seems fairly banal, but I wondered if my perceived need to recommend it reflects the apparent existence of a contrary view in which there exists, or will shortly exist, some universal tool appropriate to all uses.
Henry Jenkins refers to this contrary view as "the black box fallacy" in his book Convergence Culture. I find it hard to identify any particular person who propagated the black box fallacy -- or dream, if you disagree with Jenkins and I -- and I can't imagine anyone owning up to a statement as simplistic as "device X is all we will ever need". Yet, the black box idea seems implicit in utopian (and dystopian) narratives like that implied by questions like "Have digital tablets become essential?"
To be fair to anyone anticipating the arrival of a black box, there are presumably some limits in mind, albeit unstated and vague. Surely no one foresees a single black box performing all the functions of a computer, a vehicle, an oven, a refrigerator and a washing machine! But, even if we restrict the imagined functions of a black box to those currently performed by microelectronics, why expect a single box when there is plainly a whole host of different boxes on the market?
I suppose that the hype and excitement surrounding a new device tends to drown news of existing devices, giving a false and unintended impression that the new device is far more important and interesting than the old ones. Presumably not even the most enthusiastic supporters of smartphones or tablet PCs believe that such devices are about to replace server farms or home theatres, for example. But the features of server farms and home theatres are likely to be far from the mind of someone enthusing over the latest mobile device.
The gradations between phones, smartphones, tablets, netbooks, laptops and desktops are more subtle, though. If desktop computers were only introduced in 2012, after we had been accustomed to mobile telephony and portable computing, could we be so amazed by their computing power, large screens and keyboards as to forget that they aren't very mobile?
