Section 21: Digital Persistence

Skills Focus: Sources Documenting Your Sources—Understanding what, where, and how to cite

In a world of digital persistence, has self reinvention become obsolete? If we never lose touch, how can we move on? Can time still heal all wounds? Can we forgive if we can't forget?  Today’s readings explore the implications of digital persistence for identity.

HW, part 1 Use Perusall, which you can access from the modules section of our Canvas site, to read and annotate Jacquelyn Ann Burkell’s article “Remembering Me: Big Data, Individual Identity, and the Psychological Necessity of Forgetting.”

HW, part 2 Read legal scholar Jeffrey Rosen’s 2010 New York Times essay “The Web Means the End of Forgetting”

HW, part 3 Share your reactions to today’s readings in the online discussion posted in the modules section of our Canvas site