Welcome to the Digital Dark Age

Technology is advancing at an exponential rate. Today's newest technology might be rendered obsolete by the time the next year rolls around. It's awesome. Or is it?

Yes! Of course it's awesome. Every week we receive exciting news about the "next big thing" that will replace last year's "next big thing" (that we've barely had time to get used to!).  Though it may be hard to keep up with, the exponential advancement of technology is definitely a thrill to experience. But do we put too much faith in it?

Remember floppy disks? Me either. Just kidding, how else would I save my Oregon Trail progress?! Beyond saving my family before the died of dysentery, so many "important things" were saved on floppy disks. But if you needed to get grandma's apple pie recipe off of an old floppy disk, would you have a way to do so? Probably not. 

Google vice-president, Vint Cerf, recently warned that this obselecense of hardware and software might disable future generations from knowing anything about us. He said we might be considered by future generations as part of the "digital dark age." With almost all of our data and records being stored digitally, who is to say that future hardware will even be able to "read" past forms of data? 

Unless someone steps up and creates a way to preserve digital data in a way that it can be accessed by all future technology, the times we live in might end up non-existent to the future generations.

So think twice next time you unconsciously send something to the cloud.