Many of you will have already heard about the Library of Congress’s plans to catalog each and every one of our tweets. Cynics will certainly point to the surfeit of inanity that Twitter produces daily. I would like to look at this from a different point of view.
As much as Twitter doesn’t reflect the upper echelon of human knowledge and society, I think that is precisely what is important about cataloging it. For the first time in history, the common man’s daily life will be systematically and effortlessly archived and preserved. It’s always been the kings and queens, the rich and the educated whose ideas have been carefully preserved in time. Imagine in a thousand years when someone writes a history book about our time. Or an anthropology book. Or a linguistics book. They will know the exact thoughts, feelings, and doings of the common people on a day-to-day basis. They will have first-hand accounts of events and news unfiltered by reporters and the media. Cataloging Twitter means that those who represent the majority of the world but have had the smallest recorded legacy will now have one. Those who often hold the greatest influence over the changes that occur in any aspect of a society will now have a say that is no longer ephemeral but permanent.
So perhaps nobody cares what you’re reading on the toilet today. But who knows how it may come in handy a few centuries down the road.
April 19, 2010 at 5:33 am |
I give the human race another 100-200 years until it kills itself. Otherwise, I agree with you that this is actually a pretty cool thing.
April 19, 2010 at 10:34 am |
On that sentiment, I must agree with you.