3rd
☞ Why we must remember to delete – and forget – in the digital age
“Human knowledge is based on memory. But does the digital age force us to remember too much? Victor Mayer-Schönberger argues that we must delete and let go. (…) “Quite literally, Google knows more about us than we can remember ourselves.” (…)
That inability to forget, Mayer-Schönberger argues, limits one’s decision-making ability and ability to form close links with people who remember less. “The effect may be stronger when caused by more comprehensive and easily accessible external digital memory. Too perfect a recall, even when it is benignly intended to aid our decision-making, may prompt us to become caught up in our memories, unable to leave our past behind.” And not being able to leave our past behind makes humans, he argues, more unforgiving in the digital age than ever before. (…) “Digital memory, in reminding us of who she was more than 10 years ago, denied her the chance to evolve and change.” (…)
Harvard cyberlaw expert Jonathan Zittrain’s idea that we should have a right to declare reputation bankruptcy – ie to have certain aspects of one’s digital past erased from the digital memory.”
