Who has your memories?
Professor Viktor Mayer-Schonberger said that he worries that the digital age may be removing the critical ability to forget. The function of what he calls “social forgetting” which allows us to forget things that are embarrassing or unpleasant to remember. However, with the social networking and other such changes brought about by the internet, interesting and worrying questions begin to arise.
They remember better than you?
Mayer-Schonberger worries that some corporation or government my remember things better than we do. If google remembers what we searched for years ago better than we do, then they have power over us. Then imagine if that data resurfaces later, long after we have forgotten it. This sort of thing has already arrived with the practice of screening the public profiles of new hires. After all, it is very difficult to defend against things you forgot about. I worry about what will happen when corporations or governments remember every internet-immortalized minutia of our lives – when the internet remembers more of our live than we do ourselves.
Remembering more
On the other end of the spectrum, Microsoft researcher Gordon Bell has logged every aspect of his life into a database. He argues the virtue of using technology to remember things for us, helping us find things long forgotten that may be of emotional importance. Then again, maybe some things are better forgotten.
The real risk
Perhaps where I believe there is a real risk in remembering too much is when you no longer control what gets remembered and what is forgotten. When it is controlled by someone else, say a website, then you may not be able to stop everything from being remembered.
