Course:LIBR559A/Burkell, J. A. (2016)

Citation

Burkell, J. A. (2016). Remembering me: Big data, individual identity, and the psychological necessity of forgetting. Ethics and Information Technology, 18(1), 17-23. doi:10.1007/s10676-016-9393-1

Annotation

Jacquelyn Burkell argues in the digital age, it is becoming difficult for people to construct their own personal narratives and to be forgotten (Burkell, J., 2016, pg.17). She argues the perils of what she calls digital shadows. Digital shadows are the combination of data created by users and data created about the users (Burknell, J., 2016, pg.17). These ‘digital shadows’ make it difficult for people to forge their own identities as the information stored about them cannot be forgotten.

Burknell works off of Conway’s belief about how memory redefines a person’s identity through time and gives a sense of authentic self (Burkell, J., 2016, pg.18). She uses the example of people who have hyperthymesia, those who have unusual autobiographical memories, feel that their memories are tyrannical (Burkell, J., 2016, pg.18). She argues that forgetting is an integral part of the identity and proposes that when it comes to big data there should be an ‘expire’ option for a user's data. This will enable users to have the ability to be forgotten.

There are many critiques that can be made of Burkell’s argument. The first is that she forgets that the online identity of a person is created by a user first before data is created about a user. This is an important distinction. The user puts the information out there for the user, and the world, to see. The main critique is that identities online do not match the identities in real life. They are created and fabricated. The identities online do not represent the identity of a user.

The usefulness of Burkell’s argument in LIS studies is the knowledge of ‘digital shadows’ and the impact they can have on a user. It can be argued if forgetting is necessary for identity, but the knowledge that there is so much data on users is problematic. There should be a way for data to expire at a certain point in time or users to have an understanding of just how much data is created and collected about them.

Keywords

Big Data, Privacy, Identity

Page Author: Elizabeth Moyer