The End of Forgetting: Growing Up with Social Media

Thanks to Facebook and Instagram, our younger selves have been captured and preserved online. But what happens, Kate Eichhorn asks, when we can’t leave our most embarrassing moments behind? Rather than a childhood cut short by a loss of innocence, the real crisis of the digital age may be the specter of a childhood that can never be forgotten.

Table of Contents:
Cover Title Page Copyright Contents Introduction: Growing Up at the End of Forgetting 1. Documenting Childhood before and after Social Media 2. Forgetting and Being Forgotten in the Age of the Data Subject 3. Screens, Screen Memories, and Childhood Celebrity 4. When Tagged Subjects Leave Home 5. In Pursuit of Digital Disappearance Conclusion: Forgetting, Freedom, and Data Notes Acknowledgments Index

Review :
Well-written, well-researched, and insightful. The End of Forgetting will contribute to our growing discussion on the role and place of social media in everyday life, and the impact that new media practices have on our understanding of identity, childhood, and the process of becoming an adult. -- Mark Nunes, author of Cyberspaces of Everyday Life An elegantly written book on a timely and very important topic. Eichhorn blends stories, facts, and research to portray the role digital and social media play in young people's self-conceptions, identity development, and public image, and reveals why it is important to protect young people's ability to forget parts of the past. -- Simon Nørby, Aarhus University A necessary, original, and unexpected perspective on the impact of digital technologies on children today. -- Marcus Boon, York University Growing up online, Eichhorn worries, might impede our ability to edit memories, cull what needs to be culled, and move on. -- New Yorker An important manual for anyone who regularly posts on social media. It outlines the dangers that platforms pose, makes a great case for more cautious posting, and advocates for increasing pressure on the tech companies that hold our data. -- Sarah Manavis New Statesman Eichhorn's work needs to be included in public discourse about how we make meaning of self and others in digital spaces. We are still in the midst of making sense of the impact of social media on how we record our lives and, by so doing, how we unavoidably carry our digital history forward. The End of Forgetting reminds readers that sampling experiences and trying out different personalities, sometimes in error, is part of the human condition. The degree to which we should forgive others, or hold them responsible, remains a pressing but unacknowledged ethical concern. -- Linda Levitt PopMatters