The Write Tool for the Job?: How Digital Creativity Support Tools Can also Constrain Creativity

Michael Mose Biskjaer; Peter Dalsgaard

doi:10.1163/9789004707238_005

The Write Tool for the Job? How Digital Creativity Support Tools Can also Constrain Creativity

Michael Mose Biskjaer, Peter Dalsgaard

School of Communication and Culture - Department of Digital Design and Information Studies

Research output: Contribution to book/anthology/report/proceeding › Book chapter › Research › peer-review

Abstract

Digital tools are increasingly prevalent in creative processes. While much has been said about how this can enable new ways of thinking and creating, it is also the case that these tools can constrain creativity. In this chapter, we employ Jon Elster’s constraint typology of intrinsic, imposed, and self-imposed constraints to analyze and discuss how such tools, broadly referred to as creativity-support tools (CST s), can both enable and constrain creativity. We exemplify this through an analysis of what is arguably the most widely used CST, namely the word processor. On this basis, we discuss how the role and nature of digital tools influence our understanding of creative agency and the need for an enhanced tool literacy as CST s play an ever-larger role in human creativity.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	Constraints in Creativity
Editors	Catrinel Haught Tromp, Robert J. Sternberg, Don Ambrose
Number of pages	20
Place of publication	Leiden
Publisher	Brill
Publication date	Sept 2024
Pages	57-76
Chapter	4
ISBN (Print)	9789004707221, 9789004707214
ISBN (Electronic)	9789004707238
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004707238_005
Publication status	Published - Sept 2024

Series	Advances in Creativity and Giftedness
Volume	13

Keywords

creativity support tools (CSTs)
human-computer interaction (HCI)
creativity constraints
affordances
writing

Access to Document

10.1163/9789004707238_005

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Cite this

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The Write Tool for the Job? How Digital Creativity Support Tools Can also Constrain Creativity. / Biskjaer, Michael Mose ; Dalsgaard, Peter.
Constraints in Creativity. ed. / Catrinel Haught Tromp; Robert J. Sternberg; Don Ambrose. Leiden: Brill, 2024. p. 57-76 (Advances in Creativity and Giftedness, Vol. 13).

Research output: Contribution to book/anthology/report/proceeding › Book chapter › Research › peer-review

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