As odd as it might sound, our grandchildren (yes, twentysomethings… grandchildren) will in all likelihood be aware of absolutely everything that we do. Today’s media logs every aspect of the daily lives of everyone connected to is on such an intimate level that we will not only have record of our actions, but also very likely the rationale we used to initiate those actions.
We will be the first generation with a full psychological archeological record.
To me, this is absolutely fascinating… and also perhaps frightening in the now. Our society is so incredibly open to the rest of the world. I wonder if sharing our every thought to a global audience will amount to awareness or chaos.
They say that those who do not know history are destined to repeat it, but at what point does our capacity to report outweigh our future ability to absorb? A lot of us can’t even get through a concisely-produced History Channel documentary- so how are our ancestors supposed to be expected to troll through billions of tweets?
While we can’t blame ourselves for reporting the mundanity of our everyday lives any more than we can blame our dad for making that excruciating 2 hour home movie of the family decorating the Christmas tree, we should probably go out of our way to note the stuff that we think really matters.
That’s where I think popularity sites like digg and Facebook’s ‘Like’ button really come into play. The way we earmark our information, or our group consensus on our likes and dislikes, will inevitably be the way our generation presents itself to our children and beyond.
