When tools ‘bite first’: How tools-for-reflection (do not) afford reflection and knowledge creation

•Tools-for-reflection are not neutral objects but ‘value-rich objects’ as argued by the theory of affordances.•The materiality of tools affords certain patterns of thinking and acting as well as affective states which shape reflection practices.•Reflection is not an unambiguous precursor to knowledge creation.•While facilitative reflection produces new knowledge, oppositional reflection does not.•Tool-designers may control a tool’s affordances. The paper delineates how our understanding of reflection and knowledge development changes, if we drop the widespread assumption that objects such as tools merely ‘talk back’ (Schön) or ‘bite back’ (Engeström & Blackler) when humans use them. By drawing on the notion of affordances, the paper provides an account of how tools ‘bite first’, which means that their materiality pre-reflectively affords certain patterns of thinking and acting as well as affective states while others are less likely. My 12-month action ethnography basically offers three insights. First, my findings indicate that a tool’s materiality which affords flexibility, complexity, embodied engagement, and happiness is more likely enacted as ‘facilitative reflection’, a type of reflection that results in knowledge creation. Second, if a tool’s materiality affords less flexibility, an entity-focus, detached interaction, and frustration, ‘oppositional reflection’ is enacted, a second type of reflection that does not result in knowledge creation. Since only ‘facilitative reflection’ results in knowledge creation, the affordances-based account of tools-for-reflection also challenges the widespread argument that reflection leads to knowledge creation. Third, I offer some fresh insights into the relation between a tool’s materiality, breakdowns, and associated affective states.