Blog post: The Legacy of a Digital Generation

Quoting:

One hundred years from now, will anyone know what you did today, or even that you were alive? Did you leave any trail marking your existence, or did you leave no trace? Did you send someone a birthday card? Did you write a love note? We often begin our research classes with these questions.

What are we doing to ensure that this isn't the lost generation?  That something of this generation remains after it is gone?  Could it be that those cultures that aren't oriented to be digital will be the ones that will be remembered?  Will the rest of us disappear from history?

These are questions that are raised every few years and always remain unanswered.  Instead we become even more reliant on our digital technologies.

Jane Carlin and Barb Macke wrote part 2 and noted at the end:

Everyone has a story, everyone has a box -- what's in yours? What will happen to it after you are gone?

Perhaps instead of giving our children digital devices, we should give each of them a box and tell them to put pieces of their lives in it that they want to keep "forever".  Of course, not everything will stay in the box - some items will get weeded out - but its contents will tell a story.  And what is important is that it tell the story as that person wants it told.  This is their version of their life and no one else.