An article from the Huffington Post that is well worth reading:
These days, it seems that everyone knows everything about us. Through Facebook, Twitter, and blogs, your friends and co-workers can learn about all the details of your life–your emotions, your day-to-day experiences, and your thoughts and opinions. But what will your grandchildren know about your life? What will you have to pass on to them, to give them insight into your family, your experiences, and your life journey? When you are older, what will you have to remind yourself of your youth–when the text messages and emails have long been deleted and your photo CDs can no longer be opened?
Because we are sharing so much of out lives digitally all of the time, we may not realize that we really aren’t “capturing” any of it for the future. We have all of our photos on our computers and share our thoughts on our blogs and Facebook, but unless you are one of the few people who actually print these out, they will all disappear when the technology changes. And it will. Maybe not in the next few years, but 50 years from now the technology will all be completely different. Even in the years since I’ve graduated from college, I can’t access any of my college papers that I kept on floppy disks. Technology changes, and along with it go all of your memories. This is why it is important to record your memories the old-fashioned way–with pen on paper….
A journal is not just important for future generations to learn about you, but it is also a useful tool for you to learn about yourself. Through its pages you can look back on different stages of your life and see yourself grow. As you capture experiences in a journal you can see how your personality evolves and get a big-picture view of your life. And it can be so fun to re-read about the good times you’ve had, your time spent traveling, and even the funny comments that made you laugh and laugh. When I look back over my journals from college, I can see how much I’ve learned and changed. I also smile at the great times I had back then. I had forgotten all about the day playing mud football in the rain, until I pulled out my journal and re-lived the experience–the jokes, the friends, and the mud-splattered mess. When you look back at your journal and re-read your words, a flood of memories will come back to you and you can travel back in time for a bit.
Read more at Vivian Larkins: Will Our Memories Disappear When Technology Changes? The Virtues of Pen and Paper.
I had never really thought about how technology is erasing memories, until I read this article.
I keep a journal from time to time and I thought that it was only for personal use. However, I realise how important it is to record events, even of the most mundane, to preserve the fact that I existed.
This is an interesting post.
My partner is always saying this exact thing to me. She wants to be able to hold something in her hand for years ahead.
The Huffington poster can’t access papers on a floppy disk? Um, a USB floppy drive (and a Word workaround) should clear that right up. I have papers I wrote in 1989 available to me on my MacBook Pro.
However, I’ve been keeping a journal for 25 years, so I heartily agree with the spirit of this post. Anyone who reads my journals will never wonder what I was thinking! There are few things in life of which I am more proud than my journals (kept mainly in notebooks, natch!).
If you want something to last, carve it in stone.
I have 8″ floppies from a Wang no one on Earth can open. I have stacks of Wordperfect files on Zip carts that are next to worthless. I have forty year-old notebooks from high school I can open and read at any moment. I have 8mm and 16mm film 40-70 years old that still projects a high rez image. I have photographs from my great grandparents taken and printed 100 years ago. On the back of each one, in lovely Spencerian, is a description of the location or event and all of the people are identified.
Your great grandchildren will look at your DVDs and wonder what priceless memories they hold. Your thousands of untagged photos, even if they can be read, will only pose more questions.
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