The Collective Memory- Cyber Memory

In re-reading, The Collective Memory, by Maurice Halbwachs, I started thinking about the memories he was discussing and how utterly concrete they all were. Halbwachs talked of buildings and walls and stones as town markers reminding locals of memories that bound folks together. While I am of an age that I can relate to these kinds of historic memories in a visceral way, I kept thinking about my son’s generation and the generations that have come since. Younger generations have strong, shared memories that are very different, in locations that are real, but cyber-real, computer generated.

For my son, experiences have been shared amongst friends in places that are remembered and have even been revisited maybe many times. They even recall stories of adventures, losses and wins in these places they discovered or created. I’m not a part of this life, so it’s foreign to me, but I know it has taken up a large part of their lives growing up. Even as they have entered into adult life, they find time to spend with each other in these other worlds, even though they now live in different parts of the world.

The time they spent developing these cyber-memories has taken time away from time they could have been developing real-life memories in the outside world. (And, I must say, they have traveled the world together and have real life adventures to remember too. They do get outside!) I can’t say this computer-generated world of memories is right or wrong. I won’t be living into their future and seeing how this plays out, so I want to withhold judgement. But, as a person in the middle of my life, it give me a strange perspective. It leaves me with a feeling of loss for the value of neighborhood unity that I experiences growing up, even if it came with some strife. Communication builds a network and a quality of life that defines a community. We then build attachments to our neighborhoods and value the space we live in because we are invested in our space in a familiar, cherished way. When a great amount of the population is inside their homes most of the day, interacting with each other through the internet over many years, I wonder if that leaves much to build a strong sense of community-identity from in the long run.

The reading dealt entirely on relationships of all sorts, from local to business. I just wonder how this cyber relationship may help, hinder or maybe have no lasting effect on forming stronger community identity in the future. As the 20-somethings mature, they will find it a more pressing issue and I hope that there is some positive consequences that rises from this social-cyber environment they have invested so much time in.