Remembering in Digital Contexts

The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living. – Marcus Tullius Cicero

As the world becomes increasingly digitized, and online social networks keep us bound to each other, it’s interesting to view the digital residue that we leave behind.

This could be instances where a celebrity passes and citizens of the Internet erect a remembrance of sorts of the person and their works. Remixes, obituaries, and searching back for work in their past are made very easy due to the nature of digital information.

An example of this is when Phife Dawg from A Tribe Called Quest passed away. My phone, through Google Now sent me a “card” of information letting me know that he had passed. Google knew what music I listen to, and that perhaps I would be interested in knowing this information. It also had links to numerous tributes, YouTube clips, and playlists to learn more, and remember this artist.

We have been using technology as a possible means to press in and learn more about the living and dead in the past. I’ve also written about the times that a close friend has passed and digital, social spaces keep them in the forefront of our memories.

Staying Connected

Last week, a good friend and esteemed citizen of the Internet, Kevin Hodgson, and I were talking on Twitter.

Ian, I started to ponder, how long have we known, worked, created w/ each other? (adding @jgmac1106 here) I found my VoiceThread reflection from New Literacies Institute in 2010. Thanks for staying connected. https://voicethread.com/share/1220827/ (appreciating that the VT still exists)

Originally tweeted by KevinHodgson (@dogtrax) on January 27, 2021.

I’ve known Kevin for some time as I worked in Massachusetts and New England. The northeast of the US is a relatively small community, especially if you work in edtech and digital spaces.

Technology can sometimes push back to create these connections.

Vine Off

As technologies come and go, it can be a challenge to go back and review content you believed was lost.

As an example, one of my favorite tools to play with was Vine, a short-form video hosting service where users could share seven second-long looping clips.

As Vine was shutting down, I downloaded a bunch of my creations and uploaded them to Google Drive. For some reason, every time I opened Google Drive, these videos were up at the top.

At the start of every day, I was greeted by a flood of memories of people and moments from ages ago.

I moved some of these over to Flickr to make it easier to archive and share.