What did I do in 1984?

This week I enabled the new facebook timeline because I was too impatient to wait for it. It's good, you get to see your life flash past before you. I might want to do this on my deathbed, for instance, or just on an indifferently weathered afternoon. You need to have recorded your life first of course.

What happens when all the data in the world is electronic and connected? And facebook has become the internet, or the internet has become facebook? Will our profiles contain every known detail about us? Will our RFID chip implants save us the bother of updating our profiles? "Sarah Maginness just put the kettle on." "Sarah Maginness just died on her deathbed." "Somebody Else just got born."

Is it too late to worry about privacy? The thin end of the wedge slid past years ago. All the information that has been collected over my lifetime for some reason or another is already 'out there'. My shopping, my fillings, my internet searches probably. And since 2007 all the twaddle I have added on facebook. Now we get to fill in any gaps. And because we like our lives, and people in them, we probably will want to record and look back on our first pair of roller skates and that one time at band camp. That's why photo albums, diaries, scrapbooks, conversations and ..erm... remembering have been so popular in the past.

Are we writing history? I can't imagine future celebrities on "Who the hell are you?" trawling through 2011 census data when their relatives' lives are all there on The Interbook. So yes, we probably are. Your children can be added to your timeline. They will grow up on The Interbook and not have to go back and guess-fill as many blanks as we will. When we fill in the blanks does it matter if it isn't accurate? I would say yes for the sake of truth (but no for the sake of privacy). Can it be accurate if it isn't complete? When is it complete? If it isn't recorded electronically somewhere did it even happen? Who gets to edit history and why? Is it best to be not involved and let it all be written behind your back or be involved and at least attempt to have some input?

There are too many questions and if we ignore them they might go away. If we don't ignore them...what? We all collectively tut.

One day soon our electronic selves will claim to know us better than we do and who are we to argue with them?