An interesting development in the arena of digital technology is the release of the new iPhone app, Snapchat. Usually, we take photos in order to keep and share them with our friends - but this new app actually sets a time limit (maximum 10 seconds) to share our photos before they get deleted permanently.
This self-deleting (or self-cleaning) technology is actually not new, as most internet browsers already long have an 'incognito' mode that purposely deletes our browsing history. Of course, some commentators are quick to associate Snapchat with the 'incognito' mode, and speculate on the real use of this new app - to do 'dirty' stuff without getting caught. As 'incognito' mode was nicknamed porn mode, Snapchat is being recognized as a sexting app.
2. Beyond Us, Agony of Loss
Let's attempt to distinguish two non-exclusive kinds of loss: subjective, and objective.
Subjective loss is when something is not within our reach. Objective loss is when something is not within the reach of others. In other words, something that is subjectively lost is beyond us; when something is objectively lost it is beyond them. An object can obviously be lost both subjectively and objectively, but it can also be lost only subjectively, or vice versa.
Let's take a familiar example: when we lose a pen. This is a subjective loss, as the pen is beyond our reach. However, this is not necessarily an objective loss, as we believe the pen must be 'out there' - misplaced, or stolen, either way - the pen is still within the reach of other people. So it's only a subjective loss (the pen is beyond me, not beyond others). The lost object can be a key, remote control (in those good ol' days), or even a certain fact (person's name, a certain topic from a textbook, etc.).
We can also speculate that a purely subjective loss (like losing a pen) is almost always a painful experience. This agony is experienced, as the effort to retrieve the lost object may also reveal our impotence to keep everything that is within our reach from getting lost. Hence, this realization turns into a frustration.
3. Beyond Them, Please Forget
As there are purely subjective losses, perhaps there could be purely objective losses - things that are lost from others, but not from ourselves (beyond them, not beyond us). One good example of a purely objective loss would be Snapchat, the self-deleting photo sharing app.
Before we talk about Snapchat, we can use the example of a lost pen again to illustrate an objective loss. This time, however, we have not lost a pen, but curiously, another person has lost it. Another way to look at it, is that in a subjective loss, we've lost a pen that must be somewhere in the office; whereas in an objective loss, the office has lost a pen, but we know where it is. Of course, we can suspect mischief in such objective loss (all of you don't know where it is, but I do).
But isn't this objective loss also useful to cover our shame (as it may hide our guilt in the pen situation)? Perhaps this is where Snapchat, and 'incognito' browsing mode have their roles in our digital age.
These self-cleaning tools could be a response to the all-too-efficient way the digital world remembers. There are certain things that we'd like others to forget, but the digital world never forgets - unless it's given specific commands to do so. And to make matters worse, more and more memory backups are created precisely to avoid digital memories from getting lost. What a world we live in.
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Image source: http://www.lolbrary.com/post/37696/snapchat/
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