Life Recorders

A life recorder, or the concept of it, will capture every moment of your day, your week, your year, and your life. Microsoft has been working on such a contraption, and other technology companies aren’t far behind on this concept that takes microblogging to a new level.

So is it a good idea? Do you want your entire life streamed and searchable?

As the author of a recent Guardian article about life recorders points out, advances in technology and social media have already done to our lives what would probably terrify a typical citizen from the 70s.

Blogging and podcasting are often already used as feeble attempts to capture the many moments of everyday life. A life recorder could combine a photo blog, a continuous podcast, and a personal diary all into one.

But there could already be a reason not to do this: take a look at any individual Twitter feed throughout the course of a day. Now imagine that instead of seeing a stream of moments condensed into 140 characters, you were presented with hours upon hours of footage of the monotonies of that person’s life.