Forget It?
According to Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, professor of Internet governance and regulation at the Oxford Internet Institute, the ability to forget past events, or at least to let them recede in our minds, is critical for decision making. Psychologists often note that this ability is a valuable safety valve. As we naturally forget things over time, we can move on and make future choices without difficult or embarrassing episodes clouding our outlook. But when our decisions are tangled up in the perfect memory of the Internet – when we must factor in the effect of our online footprint before every new step – “we may lose a fundamental human capacity to live and act firmly in the present,” Mayer-Schönberger says.