Remember or Forget

Some things are best forgotten and some things are not.  We do not always forget all that should be forgotten or remember all that should be remembered.  It seems like remembering and forgetting is something that we just do, and has no rhetorical significance.  However, we can communicate by remembering certain things and by forgetting others. 

The biggest rhetorical message forgetting can deliver is forgiveness.  We often choose to forget the mistakes people close to us have done in order to send the message that we do not want to focus on the wrongs of the past look forward to the future, together.  This is how I have used my memories rhetorically.  I choose not to think of many of the unpleasant, awkward of embarrassing things my friends have done and intentionally forget it. 

Forgetting has digital applications and should the norm far more than it is now on the Internet.  The Internet is the ultimate memory machine and needs more of an ability to forget.  Vitkor Mayer-Schonberger writer of the book "Delete" proposes his solution to this problem saying, "One possible way we can mimic human forgetting in the digital realm is by associating information we store in the digital memory with expiration dates users set" (p. 171).  This is a particularly good model because information about ourselves that we no longer want on the web can be removed easily and the web will be far less cluttered with absolutely irrelevant information. 

The problem with this model is that making the user choose the expiration date of data will be of inconvenience to him or her and will hamper and digital experience.  Imagine having to choose how long information about you will be available every time you come up against a cookie.  Because of this, I only support a limited and cautious use of user defined expiration dates. 

There are some things that I want "digitally forgotten."  I create many files which do not need to be around forever and definitely deserve an expiration data.  Information about my on myspace and facebook should also have an expiration data.  The records of my given by cookies are most deserving of this.  I also think that statements on websites and discussion forums should have a limited life expectancy.  This can happen by automatically deleting a discussion thread after it has not been used on a while.  Most of the information in discussion forums consist of pages and pages of posts in threads which have been inactive for years. 
It is important that we adopt the idea of expiration dates but I think that there can also be the possibility that they can be set without the user as in the case with discussion forums.  This can be a tool in curbing that unforgiving eternally remembering cyberspace.



bibliography:

"Delete." by Vitkor Mayer-Schonberger. 2009.