[This one is dedicated to Stowe, a kindred spirit (at least in the context of e-mail].
A few decades ago, losing a personal name and address book amounted to a major tragedy. A decade ago, losing a mobile phone (with its cache of remembered numbers) amounted to a minor tragedy.
Now everything’s backed up. Or, to put it more accurately, it is possible to back everything up affordably and cheaply.
And by the time you allow for the replenishing powers of social networks, you don’t even need the back-up. e-mail addresses and telephone numbers can be rebuilt from scratch, with the help of the community.
So it makes me wonder. If re-creation costs are low, then possibilities emerge. Maybe, just maybe, we would all become more effective and more efficient, if we treated ourselves to a purge of our electronic lives every now and then.
You know those 1500 e-mails that have remained unread in your inbox for a couple of years? You know those old and outdated contact details you hold for others, details you’ve never bothered to clean up? Zap them, purge them, experience some sort of catharsis.
Who knows, it could become a fad? Colonic irrigation for digital data.
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