The past in digital times.
I’d like to start this monologue by stating the base hypothesis of it:
The way humans experience and recall their (hi)story, their lives, has fundamentally changed in the Internet Era.
I am not talking about the individual details of one’s life, my hypothesis is focused on the dynamics, the framework, in which we experience our lives after the invention of the Internet. Particularly, the way we experience our past and how we are forging the future ways we will live and remember it.
The past of the past: Pre-Internet times.
Not so long ago (a blink ago in human race span life scale), there were only a few ways to revisit the past: memories, written language, paintings, etc. Memories were probably the most ephemeral way to try to relive it. Written language has been one of the cornerstones, if not THE cornerstone, that allowed human race to develop to our current situation. In my opinion this invention is terribly underestimated these days. Think about it, writing is both a tool to preserve the past and to access it.
More recently, humans invented two other ways to preserve and access the past: photographs and videos. These two could preserve it in a more accurate manner as well as providing an easier and faster way to do it compared to written language. For some time these were the most palpable ways to relive one’s own or else's story, to visit (maybe long) gone times. But these means, these mediums, to tap into the past were still too slow for human desire; And even though they were a huge advancement when they were invented, it was still somewhat complicated to transport or access the devices or the captured past.
These inventions were(are) incredible and most likely changed the way humans experienced, dealt and re-lived the past.
BUT
My bet is that what mankind devised next had an even bigger impact than the latter ones:
Instant access to the past.
The Internet Era: a time to keep remembering
Cellphones with integrated cameras and the Internet brought upon humanity a drastic shift to the way we remember the past; maybe even relive it. The way to access the past, is not to look at old photos in a physical photo album once every two years; It’s not reading your journal nor dusting off a VHS tape and play it on TV. No. It’s right there, in your pocket, just one touch away:
You can now access the past instantaneously!
I’ll admit that was a big exaggeration: you can’t access every moment in the past (What if it wasn’t captured for whatever reason?). But you can access a lot of it, pretty much anything someone has captured and uploaded to the Cloud.
And that’s not the end of it, we are constantly snapshotting the world and endless interactions with it (which I think is amazing). This means you’ll be able to access most of your past in the future if you continue to do this. What a crazy time to live this psychedelic trip called life.
I want you to stop reading for a minute or two and think about it cause we do not acknowledge this fact neither often enough or it’s huge implications.
(Think about it again, still too soon to keep reading)
I believe that having mixed feelings about this is totally normal, that’s how I feel and the reason I started writing this. On one hand we have these amazing tools to capture the world, how we experience it and the fact that they give us a chance to “remember” as much as we want. Nevertheless, that’s the inspiration for what lies on the other hand, a question:
Are we supposed to be so close to the past so often and so vividly?
Is our brain ready? I think there is a lot to explore on how instant access to preserved moments changes the cognitive way of dealing with the past. This sounds to me as a way to cling on to it and not accept a hard truth:
The past might be captured but thats what it is: the past.
Sometimes this can feel out of our hands: social networks constantly reminds people of events that they might want to leave in the past. Before them, you couldn’t unhealthily stalk people at anytime. The past was just the past back then. Now, the past can be a ghost living on the internet, at the reach of your pocket. A ghost that tempts you to revisit it, that haunts people and imprisons them in their own mind.
When the Internet was not around, it was literally easier to leave the past where it belonged. Sounds like mentally healthier times to me.
The cherry on top of the past
Here’s another astonishing, but also underestimated, capability that the Internet gave to humans:
Instant Communication
Again, I am overstating. I should have said almost instant communication. If you are part of the digital world, you are able to send a message to almost anyone in a flash. It’s at the reach of your fingertips.
Instant communication has not been around in humanity for even 40 years.
The cellphone was invented in 1973. Shedding some perspective on time, if your parents are sixty years old, there was not a single cellphone on earth until they were 15 and only a few lucky persons came in contact with it (pretty much no one). Furthermore, commercial cellphones were released only until ~1983. Being optimistic, thats 35 years ago (even less if you consider the first cellphones had no Internet access). Our brain and the way we think must have been altered by this capacity.
Here’s something to wonder about.
Think 35 years ago. People met other people, chat, said goodbye and if they didn’t play their cards right (or wrong) … they’d never see or talk to each other. Think of all the conversations that didn’t happen because of this:
* No midnight inebriated communication with ex-es.
* No “We haven’t talked in forever, it’s so good to hear from you”.
* No “Dude! I’m going over to your city, let’s meet up”.
* No thoughts of “I should text her and ask what she’s been up to”.
* No “Oh! I found you on Facebook by chance” (yeah right).
Instead, there was doubt but also, most probably, not for too long. A hypothesis here is: people before Internet times would be able to leave things in the past easier than the ones that grew up with cellphones, computers or other means for ever developing faster communication.
Conscious people
This is why we need to be conscious about every actions we take.
What does that even mean?
It means stop for a tenth of a second and evaluate if that what you are about to do is something you have conviction on or you are just doing it because you have a device that allows you to. And this is just as valid for any activity on the digital world: I just momentarily stopped working on this post because, without realizing it, I started swiping through Instagram stories.
BE AWARE OF EVERY PASSING MINUTE AND THE FACT THAT ITS NOT COMING BACK.
It’s easy to think of the past in romantic ways, yes. It’s also easy to say “Oh, every generation is different to the past one” and it is probably true.
BUT.
Do we as a society or individuals understand what technology does to us? Do we ever question how technology affects our very core thought process?
Fuck this, I’m quitting technology.
NO! That’s not the point. But we should definitely consider having tech-detox every now and then. And definitely be aware of how addictive it is. Knowledge is power.
If you are not aware of how addicted to technology you are, can you trust the decisions you take while using our phone? What would you think of a heroin addict if he tells you “I know what I am doing” while holding a needle? (A bit harsh I know but sometimes you have to in order to make a point).
Having said that, being able to communicate across the globe to tell people you miss them is an amazing thing. It’s so mind blowing, you’d have a hard time explaining it to people that lived 70 years back.
BUT!
Theres a point where you need to listen to yourself, you know when you are not doing yourself any favors by keeping in touch. It’s crazy how often we submit to a device on our pockets more than to our own feeling of well being.
When it’s time, it’s time. Let go. People managed before without these ‘smart’ things. It’s time we become the smart ones in this weird symbiosis. Smart is telling the difference between it’s been enough and it’s useful.
