It is interesting to consider technology, particularly all the saved preferences and libraries we have collected in a sort of digital footprint. This concept of these libraries and preferences being preserved as an extension of our own memories was in a way being first imagined by engineers such as Vannevar Bush. Bush designed a machine known as “The Memex” which worked as a sort of digital filer which could pair different book pages together and be stored and accessed with time. Besides its immediate function serving as a memory extension, his machine was useful as its owner could refer back to old ideas that had relevance to a current situation in which he was able to give another person their own copy of his original connections and ideas.
This ability to create connections and document one’s ideas and opinions for later use perhaps to be shared and expanded upon evolved in one way into what became known as “blogging”. This was the very digital way of collecting ideas, sources, and even images into one place which could then be stored and shared. Blogging expanded on Bush’s early concepts of the Memex by adding speed and a-synchronous elements made possible by the development of computers and their growing accessibility around 2003.
Now we each have access to our own personal libraries upon libraries of information both stored and shared constantly around us whether we initiated it or not. We have home screens full of applications that follow the concepts of Bush and blogging, expanding in little ways that reframe what information we can store, how it is stored, and who has access to it. Twitter is a great example of one evolution path from blogging. Users can share posts, and publish their own short bits of ideas with choices on who gets to view their content. This idea of a platform that allows for the documenting and sharing of ideas is ever growing and will continue to morph through different forms as technology advances and we continue utilizing its broad capabilities, likely unquestioning where it all started, or more so, where it will go.
