The Forth Blog

                        Forget to Live in the Digital Age

       We live in a digital world. We are involved with the digital at every moment. Since it brings a lot of benefits to human life, we depend on it gradually. However, is it really good for human to rely on the digital world? Recently, I read an article which written by Viktor Mayer-Schonberger, called “Delete: The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age” In his article, he points out that the technology has changed the relationship between human and memory. This point causes me to think more about people’s life.

        Our real life is filled with digital material. People used to work or study with digital tool; moreover, information and knowledge has also been transferred by digital tool. No matter for the working or living, people depend on the digital tool in terms of gaining help. In general, it is digital tool that help us to memorize information. This technology has replaced the relationship between human and memory. Nowadays, the poetry can be digitalized; the building can be digitalized; only use the default value can record every digital working and new things. If we lose the digital information, our loss would be disastrous.

         As long as the Internet once has someone’s record, no matter how long it is, when you search his or her record, you could find it. “Google knows more about us than we can remember ourselves (P4).” Since we use the digital to memorize, every detail we have record will be last long unless we delete it by our own. However, to memorize everything is not good for human to some extent. Since forgetting is a natural law; if we broke the law, there would be some disadvantages to human life. Just as Viktor Mayer-Schonberger said, people concern about what they did and what they said on the Internet; and the life is fulfilled with chatter and tangle. As a result, people may stop going adventure; then the society would be suffering loss.

         There is an old saying in China: Misfortune may be an actual blessing. If some memory lost, just let it go, forgetting is a good thing in some case. People can gain relax from forgetting.

         The Virtue of Forgetting in the Digital Age makes me think of a Hollywood movie, “50 First Date”. It represents a love story: After the first meeting in a café restaurant, Lucy and Henry fall in love. The second day morning, when Henry wakes up and wants to kiss Lucy, Lucy is terrified and hitting Henry. No matter how Henry explains to Lucy that they have fall in love, Lucy does not believe in him. What is worse, there is no evidence left can prove that they fall in love. Going through asking Lucy’s friends, Henry knows that Lucy suffers Transient memory loss because a traffic accident one year before. When Lucy gets up every morning, she would forget all things happened yesterday. Since then, Henry starts to save her memory in a romantic way; to let Lucy fall in love with him again; Henry goes to the café restaurant every day and tries to find a way making Lucy loves him day and day.

          Although this is a movie, from the content I can figure out that, while we lose some memory we can gain other memory. As long as to experience and go through the life, we can feel the real happiness. Only relying on the digital material to memorize, we may get regret and lose.