Illusion of permanence

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: networks like Facebook, or e-mails or text messages that surface years later.

But even so, things are lost. Companies such as JPMorgan Chase and Merrill Lynch have both run into trouble when they failed to promptly produce missing e-mails to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Last fall, the National Security Archive filed a lawsuit against the Executive Office of the President, because an estimated five million e-mails between 2003 and 2005 had been deleted from the server. “Unless relief is granted and the e-mails expeditiously restored from the backup tapes, these federal and presidential records may be lost forever,” the lawsuit said. And people who do most of their work in digital format, store photos in their hard drives, and conduct everything from romance to taxes in bytes will inevitably want to access some of that information later. In 2006, the world produced an estimated 161 billion gigabytes of data, according to a study by IDC Corp. By 2010, the amount is expected to increase more than six-fold.

It’s impossible to predict what the next memory device will be. Today’s devices, which seem so convenient and hip and utterly modern — like USB flash drives and iPods — hardly seem likely to go the way of the 78. But that’s the hubris that can be found in pretty much any age. The quick progress and continuing evolution of technology mean a greater risk of digital obsolescence. “I don’t think people think about it because you’re consuming whatever is most popular, easiest to get, easiest to use in your time,” said Martha Anderson, director of programme management for the National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program at the Library of Congress. “We are in this transition time...As digital information grows, I think people will have to come to grips — what is really valuable and what do they want to save?”