Future Historians and Data

Our evolution, our rise as the species we are today, comes from our ability to transfer our knowledge to people that come after us. Our incremental knowledge is what makes us so successful compared to the rest of the species of the planet. Leaving that aside, I feel anxious for another type of loss. My anxiety -yes, I admit it sounds to dramatic, but it is how it makes me feel- relates with the content, the information we are losing, not because it gets burned or destroyed but because we can not find it. I wonder how historians of the future may retrieve some of the private conversations that are done with our phones. Yes, of course we have many other sources of information, but that personal quality, that historians used to find in letters and private documents, may very well get lost in the immensity of information that surrounds us all the time. Probably, I\’m just being nostalgic, but I don\’t have a clear image yet as how this will evolve. Lives and histories are full of nuances. As the old saying \”the devil is in the details\” and there is a lot shared, said, and disclosed in private digital gadgets that could be lost. Will we forget important data in this ocean of information?