Digital media includes 8" and 5.25" floppies, diskettes, CD/DVD/BluRay discs, thumb drives, XD cards, and cloud storage.

The Legacy of a Digital Generation

What will be your legacy? Will future generations remember you, what you did, and what you valued?

Two librarians wrote “The Legacy of a Digital Generation,” a Huffington Post article that I responded to and that is the basis of today’s post. It got me thinking about the advantages of physical media (such as books, a collections of photos, or video tapes) versus digital media (like those shown above). It also got me thinking about the different perspectives people have, where the librarians’ jobs related to physical books, and mine is from being an IBM technologist. You can follow the link for their perspectives, but read on for mine.

What kind of Legacy will Digital Media Leave?

The premise of the librarians’ article is that physical media is better because information stored electronically might be inaccessible to future generations if their newer technologies no longer support the older media. While that’s a valid concern, it only means we should plan for that obsolescence.

Storage Media Evolution

In the Agricultural Age, we ate or sold what we produced, and we left very little behind. The Industrial Era left behind more durable goods but still relatively little insight into our thoughts and attitudes. The Information Age changed all of that, and we now have the ability to create, record and access mass quantities of text, images, sound, and video.

The challenge is making sure it’s recorded on a medium that can be read in the future. As we transition through different technologies, what’s important must be copied to new media: from wire recorders to vinyl records, reel-to-reel magnetic tape, 8-tracks, cassettes, CDs, DVDs, Bluray discs, USB flash drives, etc.

For now the Internet cloud seems like the storage medium of choice, since we can rely on a service to move our content to whatever physical storage media is next but still give us online access to it.

Exponential Growth in Storage Capacity

If the amount of published information is more than doubling every two years, as IDC market analysts suggest, then more information was published in the last two years than in all of recorded history combined.

Another way to envision this phenomenal growth is illustrated in the two charts below, plotting hard disk storage capacity over time. The chart on the left shows what appears to be a roughly linear progression of capacity in storage, but the vertical axes is in logarithmic scale.

These two charts of PC storage capacity over time show the compounding effect of exponential growth.

To better appreciate the growth rate, consult the chart on the right with its fixed vertical axes. Together these charts illustrate the exponential growth effect of compounding. While the growth in storage capacity appears staggering, the important thing is less about our ability to store more stuff and more about what having random access to it lets us do.

As the amount of available data grows, the problem of managing the information becomes more difficult and can lead to lead to information overload. A technology solution involves data mining and analytics and the relatively new term, Big Data.

How Your Digital Legacy Can Live On

A few months ago I wrote an article about Recalling and Recording your Life’s Story after meeting a young lady with an interesting business creating multimedia memoirs. It made me think back on the memories my mom left for me in a hand-written book, “Grandma was Quite a Girl,” and a commemorative book about dad on the U.S.S. Minneapolis during the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Beyond a few old photos in shoe boxes, that’s all I have from them, and I wouldn’t even have that if my house caught fire or was hit by a flood or tornado.

With that physical media in mind, consider the potential value of digital media and a perpetual memorial website that makes it available to anyone versus a few photos and a grave headstone. Having an online memoir or memorial can offer so much more, including your personal account of highlights in your life and what was important to you, a history of your writings and lectures and performances, and a much larger collection of pictures and home movies. Such a website provides a place that loved ones and guests can visit to learn hear your voice and watch you in action. And they can share their thoughts and love in a social media-like experience.

Given the falling cost and rising capacity of storage, there may be no need to ever erase it. Besides, medical researchers might benefit from mining historical medical records that include mine, and future sociologists will benefit from the wealth of information stored digitally from past generations. That’s why I disagree with the two librarians and think future generations will know far more about me than any of my relatives before, and they’ll make sure it’s copied it to new media as it comes out. That’s another benefit of going digital: every copy of the information is exactly the same as the original, even if stored on different media, so you can make as many copies as you want.

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5 Comments

  1. Here’s how I responded to a Huffington Post article on QR codes:

    What will be your legacy? Will future generations remember you, what you did, and what you valued? Will they be able to read what you left for them? Think of the advantages of physical media (such as books, collections of photos, video tapes, or head stones) versus digital media (floppies, diskettes, CDs, DVDs, thumb drives, cloud storage, or QR codes pointing to perpetual). I explore different perspectives in an article at https://www.mhealthtalk.com/2012/04/legacy-of-digital-generation/.

    I also added:
    What if you’re cremated and have your ashes scattered? Where do friends and loved ones go to remember you or learn about your legacy? Perpetual websites can fill that need, but will they be around 50 or 100 years from now? When will new technologies replace QR codes? Will your electronic memories disappear and be forgotten faster than printed memories, or those etched in stone? Now’s the time to think about such things; not on your death bed.

  2. Another important aspect is being able to leave your digital legacy to others to tend, close, delete or collect any financial worth, I signed up with Cirrus to help my family and friends manage my things when I’m gone.

    Tyler

  3. MORE RELATED ARTICLES:

    Fun funerals: Why more people are joining the growing trend (Sunday TODAY with Willie Geist, 12/1/19) More and more people are planning their own funerals – and they’re making sure it’s a fun or unique celebration!

    The funeral as we know it is becoming a relic — just in time for a death boom (Washington Post, 4/15/19)

    As Recipe Cards Disappear, Families Scramble to Preserve Cherished Memories (WSJ, Jan.2019)

    On Legacy Writing & The Gift of Remembering (mHealthTalk, Feb.2015) — Everyone has a story to share; not just presidents and kings. Preserving your memories is a gift to yourself and everyone who knows you, a gift to which I can personally testify.

    Digital Preservation Is Cultural Literacy (4/27/2012) — On Monday the Library of Congress kicked off its third annual Preservation Week (April 23 to 28), a joint venture designed to engage the public on issues related to the preservation of digital memories.

    Friends from Beyond, and your Digital Will (mHealthTalk, April 2012) — about the role of social media and digital assets after death, and the need to think about this ahead of time, even creating a digital will to say who acts as executor and who takes ownership of the accounts.

    Recalling and Recording your Life’s Story (mHealthTalk, Sept.2011) — What do we remember about our parents or grandparents years after their passing? AND What do we want to be remembered about ourselves?

    What Happens To Your Digital ‘Legacy’ After You Die? (Forbes, 12/22/21) Apple’s new iOS 15.2 release has a new Digital Legacy setting to consider. The Legacy Contact function will allow a trusted family member, friend, other party to have nearly total access to your Apple iCloud account and the data stored in it when you pass away. That can include messages, emails, notes, contacts, calendar info, downloaded apps, emails, videos, photos and even device backups.

    Digital legacy: The fate of your online soul (4/19/2011)

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