An excellent overview of how the internet is changing reality.

In a podcast I heard on the CBC, (Spark, September 2009) he also talkedc about how google used to store every ‘search queery” forever. Each ‘seach’ that you do is associated with your IP address. (This practice has been changed and they now they store it for only 9 months.)

“Perfect digital info is a panoptocon. It’s also temporal.”

Mayer discusses perfect digial memory and how it means what we say today might be held against us in the future, denying humans the ability to  grow and change over time. We loose our ability to ‘act in time’.Forgetting is important to being human; forgetting allows perspective to develop and individuals to evolve.

REMEBERING VS.STORING VS. RECORDING

Mayer suggests that solutions to these unfortunate side effects of information technology might look like ‘expiry dates’ data, (ie. data may degrade overtime, have a built in expiry date or self destruct.

See also – Perfect Digital Memory | Viktor Mayer-Schönberger | Big Think.