When I was recovering from my appendectomy earlier this year the “need” arose. The need for web pages to stop crashing, the need for the ability to post on Facebook without my iPad seizing up, the need to watch videos on Flipboard and Instapaper without the screen going suddenly black.

On the left of this photo is my iPad 1 with its overly-protective cover. I bought both right before going on a short poetry reading and improv music tour in Ontario in 2010. The iPad was a new thing but as I was going to be couch surfing and doing promotions and reading a lot of novels while traveling it was an ideal piece of technology for me. I even read some of my new poems off it in public, which is when I realized that a sheaf of papers is much easier to hold in hand for 10 minutes.

But this new iPad Air (pictured on the right) is a thing of svelte lightness comparatively. I’d read poems in public from it without reservation. Web pages no longer crash, videos run smoothly, and I have very quickly become addicted to Mechanarium and reacquainted with Badland. I am typing this post on it and the letters are appearing on screen as I type them without any lag.

How strange that technology that is only three years old feels cludgy in our hands now. How strange what high expectations we have for responsiveness from a thin board of glass and metal. How easily these things have become “necessities” and ubiquitous in our presence. How will we play with light three years from now? How old will this device I’m using now feel beneath my hands?