Viktor Mayer-Schönberger's book "Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age" argues that the digital age's perfect memory is a historical anomaly, not a natural state. Historically, forgetting was easy and cheap, allowing for societal progress and second chances. The digital shift, driven by cheap storage and easy search, has created a near-limitless and permanent digital memory, to which we are not psychologically or socially adapted. This permanent record erodes the value of time as a buffer for past mistakes and removes context, leading to self-censorship and a loss of control over the meaning of information. AI
IMPACT Discusses the societal implications of permanent digital records, relevant to AI's data retention capabilities.
RANK_REASON The item is an opinion piece discussing a book's thesis on digital memory and forgetting.
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- American Political Science Association
- big data
- Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age
- Don K. Price Prize
- Ikarus
- Kenneth Cukier
- Marshall McLuhan Prize
- Media Ecology Association
- Myspace
- Oxford Internet Institute
- Stacy Snyder
- University of Oxford
- Viktor Mayer-Schönberger
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