Have you noticed that we hardly own anything anymore? There was a time when music, movies, and books took up their designated shelves. Our homes doubled as libraries where we could borrow and lend within our community. These days however we are in a permanent cycle of borrowing. Except, no one is returning anything to their rightful owners. The owners are companies and corporations that charge us for access, yet even that is temporary and comes with many strings attached.
As a millennial I have experienced many shifts in technology. I was born around the time the internet was first created. In elementary school, computer class highlighted typing, using the paint application, and saving work to floppy disk. Middle school brought the rise of the CD. Everything and anything could be burned to the portable disc which could be enjoyed on a variety of devices. I particularly miss the era of cd players with foam headphones, boom boxes, and 5 disc DVD players.
Can’t forget tapes and Walkmans. Before we had computers, we listened to the radio religiously waiting for our favorite song to come on so we could record it on cassette tapes. By the time I got to high school hand held music players were all the craze and the iPod classic was on my Christmas list. A device that could hold tens of thousands of songs was a dream for a music lover like myself. When the upgrade came where it could display movies, I did not think it could get any better.
Today, Apple has a monopoly on technology in my life. But, it wasn’t always that way. I was late to the Apple craze. When I was a senior in high school my father did not see the value of adding texting to our cellphone plan so I depended on a secondary sidekick like many of my peers. 7pm was when we had unlimited calling, but before then text me on my sidekick or AIM.
By the time college came around, unlimited texting became more necessary and my Sprint Katana was the main character while my sidekick became obsolete. My huge black laptop that could burn CD’s held me down as well. I never got a Blackberry, and that still bites me today.
By the middle of college I started to transition to Apple iPhone and iPad mini. Natural additions since I was an avid iPod user. But, even then, with all this evolution of technology, we still owned our digital libraries. We were connected but in charge of how we engaged. Exchanging content was as easy as a friend connecting their device to yours or passing around a thumb drive. Our pictures, videos, and creations were safe. Backed up on our devices and physical drives. How many of us can say that today. If the world went dark today, would your memories, thoughts, and creations go dark as well?
One of my biggest regrets is not moving on to new technology, but not preserving the past. Lost CD’s, no boom box or DVD player, phones long gone or traded in, my treasured iPod inaccessible due to a virus. We’ve traded shelves for clouds. Playlists for subscriptions. Photo albums for phone storage. Even our prayers, journal entries, and creative work often live in borrowed digital spaces that could disappear with a glitch, a policy update, or a missed payment. It’s wild to think that in some ways, we’re more connected than ever, and yet, we own less of our lives than we did 10 years ago.
I used to have subscriptions where books would be mailed to you every month. I could take out the max amount allowed at the library. I traded that in for eBooks. I have spent a lot of money for the purchase of Kindle Books but realized I’m unsure to the extent of my ownership. I can only read them in their platform. I cannot download them or let people outside of the Kindle universe borrow it.
When Apple Music first became available, I was ecstatic. The opportunity to have a world of music within my reach just for a subscription was wonderful. Yet, I could not tell you the last album I purchased. There is no library of MP3’s that I can save to multiple devices.
There was a time when you had to stand at the phone store while your pictures, videos, and contacts were transferred from your old device to the new device. Now, we have the cloud. I definitely can’t remember the last time I printed pictures. The loss of ownership has reached great lengths with even software. Gone are the days where you could purchase Adobe or Microsoft from a certain year. Now it requires subscriptions.
And I get it. Convenience is hard to resist. The cloud is easy. Streaming is seamless. Subscriptions make sense. But I keep thinking… if everything is temporary, what will we pass on? What proof will our children have of what we created, what we believed, what we loved?Have you ever wondered what happens when someone passes and no one knows the passwords, or even the existence, of their accounts? The box in storage that great grandchildren might stumble upon one day… evaporates.
Whose truth will be told if our private thoughts and sacred moments are left to the consumption of hackers and data agreements none of us are reading? Are we on the verge of a time when our memories must compete with evidence that may have been altered?
Maybe this isn’t about rejecting technology.
Maybe it’s about being intentional to preserve what you can.
Print your photos.
Write it down on paper.
Burn the playlist to a thumb drive.
Keep the physical journal.
Download the videos.
Back up the memories to external drives.
Lately, I’ve been considering investing in an airgapped laptop, a device whose purpose is to exist but never connect to Wi-Fi. A machine that holds only what you put on it. In the meantime, I find great value in external hard drives, SD cards, and thumb drives.
Because one day, the internet may forget what it held for you. And your legacy should never depend on a login, a governments perspective, or the integrity of a company that may not outlive your story.
Before some random person from a random place decides at a random time to press delete on your account…Preserve what you can.
