Jeffery Rosen has written a stunningly thought provoking article in the NYT Magazine: “The Web Means the End of Forgetting“. He wrestles with the nature of human memory and the construction of self. Lest you think that such concerns have little importance in the conduct of your everyday affairs, consider Rosen’s observation that…
According to a recent survey by Microsoft, 75 percent of U.S. recruiters and human-resource professionals report that their companies require them to do online research about candidates, and many use a range of sites when scrutinizing applicants.
Rosen toys with the idea that as we tread the Web each of us leaves behind a trail of digitally fossilized footprints. Our trail, so fossilized, will inevitably be used by others who wish to decipher our habits and thoughts, to corner and categorize us for their own purposes.
What might others make the trail we leave behind? How will this or that record of moments past — a picture, a written paragraph, a voice or video recording — be used by anonymous hunters browsing the Internet with the aim to decode and classify us?
How fearfully discreet should we be, lest we become defined and damned by a digitally fossilized artifact created in some unguarded moment and interpreted by those with their own agenda?
A search of the Web reveals an ancient snapshot, originally taken in 79 AD Pompeii. It was captured by the superheated ash from Mount Vesuvius. The indelible image captured presents us with one frozen moment in the lives of two citizens of Pompeii. Is their ungouarded moment sweet or obscene? What conclusions might a human resources specialist draw regarding the character of these two people? Should they be hired?
