Gmail’s promise — vast storage mediated by powerful search tools — became the promise of virtually everything online. There is so much I loved in those archives. There is so much I would delight in rediscovering. But I can’t find what matters in the morass. I’ve given up on trying.
What began with our files soon came for our friends and family. The social networks made it easy for anyone we’ve ever met, and plenty of people we never met, to friend and follow us. We could communicate with them all at once without communing with them individually at all. Or so we were told. The idea that we could have so much community with so little effort was an illusion. We are digitally connected to more people than ever and terribly lonely nevertheless. Closeness requires time, and time has not fallen in cost nor risen in quantity.
The digital giants profit off my passivity. I now pay Apple and Google a monthly fee for more storage. It would take too long to delete everything necessary to remain beneath their limits. Various algorithms attempt to do for me what I no longer do for myself. They present me with pictures from my past and offer to sell me books of my own memories. They serve me up songs that are like the ones I’ve loved before but lost long ago. My feed is stuffed with recommended content from influencers and advertisers who mean nothing to me.
