The technological possibilities of the present assure users’ possibilities of data access, sharing and consumption. People create enormous amounts of data through their everyday activities, and it is not surprising that researchers have become interested in the role data plays in people’s lives. As it appears, data influences people’s leisure, work, even the entire development, construction of knowledge and experience, and the way people think and act. Since technologies and research allow gaining much deeper understanding into the issue, the findings may and should be implemented, at a variety of levels, to make people’s lives better, richer, and even introduce some change.
On the discussion questions, the first reflection connects with a hypothetical possibility to record each event of a person’s life and then to allow the person access and review any possible moment, as Deb Roy (“The Birth of a Word”) suggests. The question (Question B) enquires if the author wanted to have such an opportunity, to go back to certain events, relive them, and possibly change something. The author believes that the possibility to store all memories in a perfect memory store could be wonderful. Like in a huge server base or on a hard drive there would be enough space for storing all memories and events of the person’s life. To have access to the data of such kind for the person could be a great chance to remember some precious moments captured on the fly. There is a possibility that some moments just happen unnoticed, and accessing them retrospectively could allow the person discover them in the first place. Other moments may be very valuable. So having a chance to access them and relive the moments could be just marvelous, in some cases especially, in case of a loss of a loved one, for instance. However, the author would choose not to change anything. Personally, the author values and loves their life as it is, at this very moment. The possibility to relive a moment, to rediscover something and to introduce change in life could bring serious changes into what the present is, and therefore the life today would become different from what it is now. So the author envisages the ‘memory store’ topic only from the perspective of preserving memories, not going back and forth to the past and present and changing something, impacting their own life and lives of significant others, which are closely connected with the author’s life. It could be something like a virtual reality, a simulation, with a chance to go back, to feel, touch, see, smell, talk to people, but exactly the same way it has already been.
The second question to discuss is interlinked with the previous opinion. The question of the choice (Question D) concerns Cesar Kuriyama’s speech (“One Second Every Day”), and his wonderful idea of assembling 1-second every-day videos into a single movie, which would eventually make up his life story. First thing, it is really a great opportunity to remember the most valuable, meaningful events, to keep them stored, and at the same time not to distract from actually living the moments. For making only short videos is enough not to forget, but to stay in the moment. Personally, the author would pick for montage those parts from videos, which show as many important people as possible. Capturing special moments with close people, whether it be friends, family, loved ones, is the most important thing. Moreover, personally, the author likes watching through home videos from previous years to recollect what the family has been like in past moments – what parents have said, how small children have been, how the family gatherings have happened. The videos of self would, perhaps, be displaying things, which have evoked the strongest emotions or impressed the author the most. It is also true that compiling such a film could help the author, same as in Cesar Kuriyama’s (“One Second Every Day”) experience, re-evaluate activities of everyday life. Things done, priorities, leisure, and work – it is a chance to see everything from a different angle, as if from the sidelines. This may allow reconsidering how every day of life is lived, and probably, this may help one make their life more meaningful.
Works Cited:
Kuriyama, Cesar. “One Second Every Day.” TED, filmed March 2012, http://www.ted.com/talks/cesar_kuriyama_one_second_every_day.
Roy, Deb. “The Birth of a Word.” TED, filmed March 2011, http://www.ted.com/talks/deb_roy_the_birth_of_a_word.
