The tool shapes the hand.
A posh way of saying that if the only tool you have is a hammer then every problem looks like a nail.
I am writing this on a Nokia N800, a little internet tablet, kind of like a Linux based iPhone but without the phone bit just wifi, Skype and Gizmo, Firefox and access to a large repository of free software.
The thing I have found most interesting about using such a device is how it shapes my approach to the internet. The internet is no longer something remote, locked away behind a computer that will take ages to boot, but it is now immediate, personal, readable!
I am not a big fan of the ebook concept, it threatens to leave the past mutable and the present controlled, but as I type these words and my brain nods sagely I can feel my paws twitch as they dream of an infinite library.
Lost ConsCIOusness 
Hmm… but does it fit into your hand as beautifully as the iphone? and the immediacy, so it is with the iphone – what’s the diff?
I suspect that the iPhone may trigger similar thoughts, I do not have one so could not comment to that. The N800 does have the “advantage” of supporting Flash so is more universal in that respect.
The key test is do you reach for it at 3am when your blocked sinuses have woken you up and you have to wait for the medicine to kick in so you can go back to sleep?
The Internet has been rather too immediate for me for some years now. I’m almost always with my laptop, and seldom far from a wireless network. My laptop gets pushed under my bed last thing at night, and pulled out first thing in the morning. It rarely takes more than thirty seconds from opening it up to checking my emails or the Guardian headlines. I start to get a bit nervy if I’m out of wireless range and my fingers itch if I haven’t been online for a few hours.
It’s for this reason that I actively avoid buying a crackberry or the lovely-looking iPhone. I think if the online world were any more immediate I might just disappear head-first into the Matrix, never to return.
@The Bureauista I know what you mean, I sometimes think that the modern world is some kind of giant behavioural experiment, a vast Skinner’s Box where we are tested to see how long we can go without tweeting, texting or blogging.
I wonder what our food pellet rewards are? Twitter followers? Blog links? 🙂