May

22

Digital Life After Death

Filed Under Daddy Posts 

I just saw this article on CNN.com, and it starts to get to the heart of something that’s been on my mind a lot lately: What’s going to happen to all my digital stuff when I die? By the time I kick the bucket (assuming I live to a ripe old age), I’ll have hundreds-of-thousands of digital photos, thousands of videos, blogs, websites, etc. that will outlive me in cyberspace. Where will they all go? I’m not sure my family will know how and where to find everything…, and quite honestly, I’m not sure they’ll want to be bothered with all of it even if they did.

I think about my parents – and all the stuff in their house…, if there were to die, what would I do with all of it? I’m talking about the important, sentimental stuff, not all the crap, which I plan to throw in a dumpser (sorry Mom and Dad :-) ). My father was also a photographer, and he has a huge closet full of binders of negatives (remember…, before digital cameras…, things used to be shot on film). What am I going to do with all of them? I don’t think I could bring myself to just throw them away. They also have a lot of valuable records, boxes of awards that my dad won as a boy, handwritten letters from my father to my grandfather. Digital files have replaced hard copies of most of these types of things, but that doesn’t make them any less valuable.

Truth be told, as much as I do at a computer, I still make 5×7 prints of my favorite photos and keep them in a shoebox, high up on a shelf in my house. I make a hard-cover book of my favorite photos from each year too. When it comes to this kind of stuff, the experience of reliving the past is much more intimate and meaningful when you’re holding it in your hands and thumbing through prints or turning pages. Looking at photos on a computer screen is much too cold an experience; too disconnected.

So about all our digital stuff…, what’s going to happen to it? Will it get deleted after we’re gone, or will it live on in cyberspace as sort of a 21st century interpretation of immortality?

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