Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age
There is an old short story about a man who, unable to forget anything, is condemned to exist in a "world of nothing but particulars." In his new book, Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age, Viktor Mayer-Schönberger argues that our digital footprints have led to a similar relationship with memory.
Delete provides an intriguing theory about the role of memory in society, the ways in which our desire to record and display everything on the Internet has eliminated our ability to take risks—romantically, professionally, financially—and a potential future that is "unforgiving because it is unforgetting."
Mayer-Schönberger points to ways that the Internet can be used against you: a teacher loses her job because of a drunken Myspace photo, a 60-year-old is held at the Canadian-U.S. border for publishing a paper on the Internet that details the experience of dropping acid 30 years ago. Granted, those people voluntarily disclosed information about themselves, and the writer determines that we often disclose personal details without knowing. Social networking sites blast all of your info out to friends and colleagues, and search engines retain near perfect memory of every single query. Without the ability to wipe information clean from our record, the book suggests, we are no longer able to generalize, and remain lost in the details of our past.
The main technological drives that have facilitated this shift in memory include: digitzation, cheap storage, easy retrieval, and global reach. The problem, so the argument goes, is in the overabundance of available storage capacity, which makes the amount of space needed to store a photo cost less than the few seconds it takes to delete.
Solutions Mayer-Schönberger advocates involve "digital abstinence," a combination of broad information rights with purpose limitation rules and, most sensibly, the option to enter an expiration date anytime you upload something to the Internet or your hard drive.
The book's overall thesis is thought provoking, to be sure, but none of it seems to offer a breakthrough. It's easy to imagine the writer, a Harvard academic, shaking his fist in a 'kids these days, with their digital cameras and unlimited storage!' fashion.
But the ultimate solution seems obvious: let's just not get sloppy with our Internet habits. Learn some etiquette, make better use of your privacy settings, and practice self censorship by using this analogy: if you don't think you'll want that tattoo in ten years, don't get it.
Of course, we still might worry about our kids Googling into our past, but the most reassuring point the writer brings up is that we will all get used to this initial discomfort and learn to forgive one another for earlier "digital skeletons" and LiveJournals.
Even though it gives us problems that did not exist ten years ago, the Internet is clearly a brilliant tool when used correctly. Just this week, we saw the very first video image of Anne Frank, sitting at a window enjoying a moment to herself. With these types of advances in mind, the tendency of persisting data presented in Delete does not have to be the bane of our existence.
Instead, virtual footprints allow people to express the drive of human nature to record parts of their lives and share them in a very easy and satisfying way. Forgetting events means you overlook the impact, while remembering brings it back to human scale. And this is a point that might have slipped Viktor Mayer-Schönberger's mind.
- Categories: Science & Technology
Sounds like a great book -- I should pick it up.
Great analysis of this book. While his 'solutions' are certainly top-down (implemented options and rules) I agree with you, Toby--people simply need to take greater responsibility for how they use the internet. It's especially important to teach children about good usage, since this generation of kids will grow up with information-at-your-fingertips as the norm. So rather than imposing rigid rules to police people, how do we have a broad conversation with internet users about "proper" conduct? And I don't mean that in a censorship way, but rather proper in making sure that you are protecting yourself and being mindful of your words/actions on the web. It's easy to forget that every last unflattering photo and nasty comment you made could and will be stuck in the cracks of the internet for the rest of forever.
Personally, I am happy to have grown up in an era without all of these social networking sites, etc. It scares me to see the 1000+ tagged pictures of my 17 year old sister on Facebook. Maybe she is lucky that the current capabilities of the internet has provided her with a virtual footprint of her life? But, remember when people used to take non digital pictures and send letters. It is true that our current digital age has made memories easier to capture and preserve, but is this really better?
I'm not really good at self-censoring when I speak, and I think it would be disingenuous of me to censor myself on the internet. But while I have public profiles, I un-tag unflattering photos. And I actually do make an effort not to cuss in status updates because of my impressionable young cousins. How lame is that? But don't worry, I'm not some technological conundrum, I just really like how social networking sites give you the ability to project yourself in whatever light you choose. I block some people from seeing parts of my page, but those people are probably offended when I say "crap". The biggest internet worry for me right now is alienating my "friends" because I talk about Lady Gaga too much, but I do that in real life, too. Honestly, I could talk about social networking and internet privacy all day, but when it comes down to it, the reason I censor myself as little as I do is because I really don't give a shit. If someone's not going to hire me because of something they read on the internet, I don't want to work there anyway.
p.s. When I finally get out of college and have to find a job that pays more than minimum wage, THIS NEVER HAPPENED.
I agree with Gary. If you don't want your Dad to see your facebook page, just limit his ability to look at certain parts of your page. If you don't want everyone to know how drunk you were last night, don't tweet about it. Sure, there's more sharing of info these days, but you can still do whatever the hell you want behind closed doors...so long as those doors are actually closed, which you generally have control of.
In fact, I would argue that the "inability to forget" can enhance our society -- it will encourage us to be more responsible with our actions and public comments. And I agree wholeheartedly with your final point, Toby. The author seems to be focusing on the negative aspects of the digital age, while ignoring the many positive aspects, and not blaming those who are truly at fault here: the people who are OVERsharing info like the teacher who got fired.
Look, my grandmother's college roommate just friended me on Facebook. Seriously. I don't even know how to feel about the internet anymore.
People need to have some personal responsibility when it comes to sharing information on the web. I think the most obvious thing people in the future will learn about us and our usage on the web is that we're a pretty narcissistic/vain culture. LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT WHAT I DID! LOOK! ME! I'M CLEVER.
Personally, I just use it for porn. Clean your cookies!