by If you’ve grown up with social media, chances are you’ve taken more photos in the past few years than you’ll ever remember. With the sudden advent of cell phone cameras too, social media turned into community photo albums, and online memories were preserved forever. Or so we thought.
In 2019, MySpace lost 12 years worth of music and photos, affecting more than 14 million artists and 50 million tracks. If Instagram or the entire internet suddenly disappeared, would you be able to access your precious memories?
We live in a “digital black age”, a term popularized by information and communications specialist Terry Kuny. Back in 1997, Kuny warned that we were “moving into an era where much of what we know today, much of it coded and written electronically, will be lost”.
He argued that, like medieval monks who preserved books (and therefore knowledge), we need to preserve today’s digital objects. Otherwise, future generations will be left with gaps in knowledge about our lives today.
This article is part of Chatrú Saól, a series about issues that affect us in our twenties and thirties. From the challenges of starting a career and looking after our mental health, to the excitement of starting a family, adopting a pet or making friends as an adult. The articles in this series explore the questions and provide answers as we navigate this turbulent time of life.
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People often say that “the internet is forever”, but digital artifacts like photos and videos are unstable and impermanent. You’ve probably come across “linkrot”, when a URL to an important source leads to a web page that has now been deleted. Hardware becomes obsolete, degrades and is upgraded over time. Bit rot (also known as data or file rot, or data degradation) means that we may have no physical means of accessing our past data.
Many people already find it difficult to use technology and software that has reached its “end of life”. With the lack of backward compatibility (when updated technology or software cannot support older versions), how will future generations access old data stored in obsolete formats?
We are also seeing emerging issues related to data ownership, particularly when controlled by private corporations. Families have faced legal difficulties in gaining access to the social media accounts of their deceased loved ones. Likewise, if Spotify or Netflix opened tomorrow, you wouldn’t own any of the songs or movies you stream on a daily basis.
Digital life
For a number of reasons, you may not even notice that we are in the midst of a new digital dark age.
From Google smart homes to contact tracking technology, life is becoming more digital. Without an app, internet or social media account, it’s difficult to verify your identity and access data – even your own. Many people don’t even consider non-digital means of recording, creating and living their lives.
With Instagram stories disappearing after 24 hours, and Snapchat and WhatsApp’s disappearing messaging features, you’ve probably experienced data disappearing instantly.
With the need for environmental sustainability on the rise, the answer to reducing our carbon footprint seems to be a switch to digital formats – although have you thought about the e-waste you produce?
Even with data protection laws that give people the right to delete personal data, many could no want to preserve their data forever. Identity theft can occur with social media content that reveals biometric or other personal data. And that’s not to mention cyberstalking, cyberbullying, distribution of “revenge pornography” and online grooming.
But despite all these very understandable concerns, there are still good reasons to think seriously about how you preserve the digital artifacts and data that matter most to you.
Protect and preserve your old data
If you misplaced your phone, could you remember important phone numbers, or navigate streets when lost? If the answer is no, you may want to think more carefully about data preservation.
This is something we should all think about, and not just leave it to digital archives and preservationists. When organized efforts are made to preserve data, who decides what to preserve can be a political as well as a technological issue.
When it comes to your own digital memories, there are services you can use and steps you can take to preserve data from being lost to history:
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Keep multiple copies (and formats) of important data across different devices: SD cards, USB thumb drives, DVD/Blu-ray discs, external hard drives and NAS (network attached storage) boxes. This must be combined with ensuring that you regularly transfer important data to the newest device or format (remember, avoid minor rot).
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Try discovering analog (re)trends – board games combined with video games, streaming vinyl records to music, or celebrate the revival of Polaroid cameras. There are many services available to convert digital photos into printed photos, albums and physical artwork.
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Embrace the ethos of FAIR principles – available, accessible, interoperable and reusable – so that you and others can easily find and access any important data you want to preserve.
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Finally, if you come across a broken link or other missing data, you can explore data preservation initiatives such as the Long Now Foundation’s publicly accessible Rosetta Project or the Internet Archive, a non-profit library of digital books , movies, software, music and websites.
This article from The Conversation is republished under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Esperanza Miyake does not work for, consult with, share in, or be funded by any company or organization that would benefit from this article, nor has she disclosed any material affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
