PADDs have been around in one form or another since the original Star Trek, where they looked like chipnpin machines and were used by Kirk to sign off Scottys weekly bar bill. They cropped up a bit in early Next Generation episodes, too, until eventually even Starfleet realised what a monumentally stupid idea they were so of course Neelix makes full use of them over on Voyager. PADDs contain short messages and reports, or occasionally personal correspondence, and get delivered by yeomen or other junior officers for the bridge staff to appraise and sign off on. That is to say, theyre an e-mail that has to be downloaded to a Kindle and taken to the boss in person by the office tea-boy. Star Treks designers managed to invent a new form of communication that was significantly slower than anything in use at the time, which is pretty impressive. Does no-one in the Federation have an e-mail address? Everyone has those little control panels on their chairs, youve got to assume those do Twitter and all the other apps. As originally designed, the PADDs were meant to be wirelessly connected to the main computer, controlled with a stylus or touch screen and used to play videos and read information given how ubiquitous tablets are nowadays, itd make a lot of sense if everyone on board had their own to hand at all times. But then, its quite possible that Kirk deliberately started the practice of having beautiful women bringing him his e-mails, if only to break up the monotony of staring at the back of Chekovs head.
