Digital Solutions to Helter Skelter

I just heard a report on Fox News about a tornado that touched down in Tennessee. Apparently, a police officer was in his patrol car when the tornado picked up the car and tossed it some distance with the officer inside. The segment ended with the officer saying, "It's something I will never forget."

Really, now?

Let's fast forward 20 years from now. His buddy asks him, "Remember that tornado that picked you up back in 2006?" Can you imagine the officer saying, "Dude, I barely even remember that one. Did you say that I got picked up by a tornado or something?"

What's more odd, perhaps, are the events we are likely to remember for the rest of our lives. I can remember thinking as a 15-year old that a painfully awkward situation really didn't matter in the grand scheme of things because "I'll never remember it 20 years from now." As it turns out, I still remember!! Sometimes the events are noteworthy, but other times they are less remarkable, such me as hiding in the back of a car trunk as a 6-year old with a friend while singing Play that Funky Music White Boy to people walking by on the sidewalk (unrolling bathroom tissue out the back of the nearly-closed trunk included).

What is interesting to me is that this upcoming generation could remember virtually every event in their lives because of the traces of digital photography they have created. I figure it this way: If I take pictures of my 6-year old son at an event--let's say to a car show, for example--and then review those pictures with him every three months, he likely would never forget the experience.

What's scary is that you could strategically make memory imprints on the minds of youngsters about an event as mundane as eating at Bob Evans. Fast forward 30 years: "Son, do you remember that time we ate at Bob Evans back in '06." "Sure, Dad. That was the time when we had the Word Find on my Kid's Activity Book about the National Parks. You took lots of high resolution pictures of that too."

Further, from a parental PR perspective, one could strategically create a set of photos for the sole purpose of proving to your kids later in their lives that they did, in fact, have a happy childhood. "The pictures don't lie, Johnny. You grew up in a happy and stable home. So stop blaming me for your emotional problems." Too bad Mr. and Mrs. Manson didn't have a digital camera to take snapshots of their dear little Charlie.