Seems like you're jumping to some pretty big conclusions based on a single "shut her up" comment. Your passive-aggressive rant comes off much worse than his words. Tone it down, please.
I assume you mean multiple windows that you switch back and forth on. You can of course do that on a computer today, yet people such as graphics pros use multiple monitors. It improves workflow when working with several files and makes cross referencing easier, without having to waste time switching back and forth. Multiple windows also means additional interface elements, and on a PADD I imagine space is a premium. Maybe but that doesn't mean there aren't logical reasons to use multiple PADDs. Those devices are plentiful and there are apparently tons of them on board a starship available for anyone to use. It's not like going to the Apple store and purchasing a dozen iPads to make some task easier. First, that costs a lot. Second, you won't always need all of them, making the purchase further harder to justify. The situation on a starship is different.
A fun detail there: it does cost Paramount/CBS real money to get multiple PADDs to the set, even if it's a pittance and the things are made of plywood. In practice, a stack of PADDs will feature several designs, as the stories so seldom call for multiple examples of the same PADD yet the propmakers do try to create diversity by introducing new and different props every now and then. Now, this variety may be argued to have an in-universe meaning of some sort: perhaps one design of PADD does certain things better than another? It would still be really odd for there to exist the need for half a dozen different things to be done with PADDs, and for separate physical units to be required for doing that optimally... Also, the one most prominent occurrence of "stacks of PADDs", from ST:INS, features all-new props! http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/insurrectionhd/insurrectionhd0555.jpg But those do represent a variety of types. Perhaps it's not the information on them that keeps Picard busy, but some sort of a hands-on evaluation on which one should be selected for shipwide use? Timo Saloniemi
Well, we got to speculate somehow, since there's no official answer. Why would a person doing research, for example, have thirty books open, why not just use a comptuer or Kindle? 'cause it's easier to have the books.
some of those padds have larger screens than his primary desk computer interface. If I was Picard I'd use the padds full time
In the StarTrek II novelization, Spock takes some information from the computer in the bridge, prints it, gives Saavik the piece of paper and order her to take it to Doctor McCoy.
Many of our heroes use conventional (that is, antiquated) media for things that should look rather odd to anybody living in a western urban environment today. In ST6, Scotty apparently ticks off places he has checked for hidden uniforms using a 2D schematic printed out on paper plus a red pen. This if anything is a task somebody today would handle using a tablet, so that the search results can be shared with other trusted agents involved in real time and there is no unnecessary overlap. Plus because a single static 2D top view of the ship isn't the most convenient way to tackle the twenty-something decks within! For the 1990s audience, paper might still look "convenient". For the 2010s audience, there's the practical experience that tablets and their software are generally inconvenient to the extreme, but also the faint hope that things will get better someday. Wouldn't Scotty wish to minimize the amount of gear he has to lug along, by centralizing all his diverse ops on a tablet of suitable size (they do come in different sizes in the TOS movies)? Timo Saloniemi