鈥淭HE internet鈥檚 not written in pencil, Mark. It鈥檚 written in ink.鈥� So says a vengeful ex-girlfriend in The Social Network, the somewhat fictionalised biopic of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
Her warning should have particular resonance for those of us whose lives are increasingly being documented in status updates and smartphone snaps: be careful what you post, because the internet never forgets.
Upsetting, embarrassing or just plain irrelevant material can linger forever. While there are ways to ensure that online material is given an 鈥渆xpiry date鈥�, they are laborious, technically demanding and unintuitive. We prize memory so much that we value permanence more than transience 鈥� and have forgotten that forgetting has social and cognitive benefits.
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Online information can also be lost through carelessness or technical glitches 鈥� and some of what vanishes can be priceless (see 鈥淒igital legacy: the fate of your online soul鈥�). What we need now is a way to do the same thing selectively, so that yesterday鈥檚 party picture doesn鈥檛 become tomorrow鈥檚 sackable offence. For the sake of our digital legacy, it鈥檚 time we were able to choose pencil as well as indelible ink.