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| Unsplash/Markus Spike - Digital |
Fresh
off reading an article of digital pollution, this is also a personal reckoning of
sorts. What the Internet and particularly social media has given us are
platforms. Whether we are worthy of being given platforms of such immense power
is a different matter.
Air, water and soil pollution are phenomena which most sensible people have acknowledged and are working to address. The concept of digital pollution is yet to take root to that extent. Given our political leanings and enemies of choice, it is all too easy to classify the opposing camp’s views as the pollutants. Yet digital pollution has more to do with information overload rather than bias.
Looking
through my suggested Facebook memories, the occasional joy of finding something
unique is counterbalanced by the massive amounts of inane posts which must have
meant something to me then but sure don’t mean much now. They sit there,
somewhere on my timeline, to reappear on their anniversary to be rejected yet
again.
Much
like plastic, a piece of digital information tends to live on forever; refuses
to degrade; denies the grim reaper. Our unhealthy obsession
with documentation ensures that the most meaningless moments are also recorded
for posterity’s sake. Decades of irrelevant data in the form of a cloudy day pic or a restaurant selfie will eventually start clogging the system. Like that individual grocery bag, the combined impact will be tough to comprehend until it reaches unmanageable proportions. As someone who is a committed data hoarder, I represent the digital polluter equivalent of the SUV riding, AC seeking, 'development' seeker.
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