Bound Volume Number
Volume VIII
Degree Type
Honors Capstone Project
Date of Submission
Spring 5-2016
Capstone Advisor
Denise Heckman
Capstone Major
Instructional Design, Development and Evaluation
Capstone College
Visual and Performing Arts
Audio/Visual Component
no
Keywords
better understand the topic of memory making and archiving, both physical and digital
Capstone Prize Winner
no
Won Capstone Funding
no
Honors Categories
Creative
Subject Categories
Film and Media Studies
Abstract
Our technology has been evolving so rapidly and our ability to capture our moments has been become so accessible, we are creating hundreds of thousands of digital files. When we were operating with analog methods of memory making and archiving it was much easier to organize our files because we had fewer or them and they were often all sentimental because of their value. Today, it is hard to distinguish between all of our digital files to determine which ones are most important and even to determine where they are. The creation of social media has created an interesting dynamic for our memory making because we are capturing moments and posting them to online social networks, allowing these digital artifacts to create a life of their own. These social networks sites can also act as a place for identity creation and curation, and a new phenomena. During the research phase of this project my goal was to better understand the topic of memory making and archiving, both physical and digital. We have been capturing memories and archiving them since the beginning of our existence but with this rapid change in technology we are starting to move away from analyzing our physical presence more and are becoming enveloped in our digital worlds. I explored the ways in which we could bring ourselves back to physical world through the creation of a digital legacy that creates a narrative of one’s life. I launched surveys and research activities to learn more about people’s current habits and what they might want to change about their digital legacies. After the research phase, where I defined my design objectives, I moved into the design phase where I began talking with users and creating products that could assist in this process. I developed a physical product and a web platform that allows users to begin creating their own digital legacies that are more organized and can be shared with others if they were to die. The physical product acts as a storage device for the user’s digital legacy and the web platform acts as the shoebox or scrapbook, it is where the creation, organizing and viewing of the digital legacy occurs. Together the user is able to create and store a legacy that is sharable with others. The topic of digital archiving and digital legacies for millennials who are the biggest user group of the internet and social media sites is a rising topic. There are several groups trying to tackle the issue and social media companies are adapting their platforms to accommodate better memory recall. The inclusion of artificial intelligence and smart products in the home is also a growing field, with products like amazon echo and siri. As we progress as a society we are going to be living with technology, it is going to be all around us. Through Totem, my goal is to spark conversation about the growing topics of memory recall, digital archiving, digital legacies and death prep.
Recommended Citation
Folger, Sarah, "Personal Memory and Digital Mobile Media: How A Product and A Web Platform Can Improve Digital Memory Archiving" (2016). Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All. 981.
https://surface.syr.edu/honors_capstone/981
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
