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Is it just because I’m old, or…..
Posted by: Pam | 26.05.07
Thoughts about the fleeting life-span of e-literacy usually only strike me when I’m looking for an excuse to put off tackling the hard drive housekeeping. But this time they were sparked by a text message from an old mate who makes natural history films and, so, spends much of his time in places where there would be signs saying “Earth’s last true wilderness”, if only there was anyone within 100 miles to make, mount or admire them.
When he first started travelling, exchanges of messages were memorable events. One year, Ted received a birthday tribute on time, thanks to a detour by the scantily-clad crew of a dug-out canoe. On another occasion, he ended a letter “Must close now or I’ll miss the post” – a fine example of British understatement, given that in the rainforest, the boat that carries post calls monthly (weather, flood and fallen trees permitting).
I still have the letter – stained with the splattered corpse of one of the biting insects of which it complains. But today’s txt? That’s as likely to survive as the place he sent it from – a South Pacific paradise that is almost certain to sink under the rising tide of climate change.
Gadabout Giffords would be the first to admit that – however relayed – his despatches aren’t destined to be historically important. But they do highlight how communication has changed in the last 10 years, and the challenge the changes will create for historians of The E Age in future.
For sure, digital technology is a boon in many ways. It’s quicker, slicker, less elite and more widely shareable than any ‘old skool’ letter, diary or manuscript. But, as anyone who ever owned a Betamax knows, it also becomes redundant faster than you can say reel-to-reel tape recorder.
And when the pace of technological development is combined with a read-it/dustbin-it attitude to communications and records, it doesn’t really matter how many Bibles fit in a tetrabyte. In future, who will have the means to view the Collected Emails of Atticus, Bede’s YouTube History of the English People, the Flickr Book of Kells, or Samuel Pepys’ Blog?
We’ve been here before – we think. The years around the last Millennium are often called the Dark Ages because of the scarcity of hard information. Usually, the historical gap is blamed on a sudden boom in horn-helmeted stag parties and a new fad for raiding, looting, ripping and burning. But it’s tricky to be certain, without written evidence.
What if the real reason the darkness descended was that a monk with time on his hands hit on a beautifully-illuminated way to ask all the world’s writers and records-keepers: “Are you sure you want to delete?”. And they answered, as we do daily: ‘Yes”?
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It does make you wonder, the old letters and faxes that I have kept run out after the mid 90’s. It’s similar too with photography. I have boxes of old photos and often the random ones now prove the most interesting. I believe that photographic archivists are worried as often the significance of an image is not immediately apparent. The random photos that might show an event or person who later proved important are no longer around.
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