it scares me that yet another device encouraging passive consumerism may become immensely popular You mean like one of these? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book

it scares me that yet another device encouraging passive consumerism may become immensely popular You mean like one of these? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book But seriously, think about it. Why would a "media consumption" device become popular? It might be because "passive consumerism" is popular. The iPad does what most people already do with laptops and desktops, which they did before with TVs and VCRs and CD players and game consoles and newspapers and magazines and books. It's just technology conforming to what people actually do, which historically seems to work out in everybody's favor--moreso than trying to change human nature to fit an ideal, at least--in the form of new capabilities and the cognitive surplus to use them.