History Now

[goldenecho]

So, I've seen several things floating around about keeping a journal during this time...that that will be the history of tomorrow.

And then I scrolled through Facebook.

Every other post...really, MORE than every other post, was directly related to Covid-19. Even most that weren't directly related seemed very relevant to it...to the situation people are in. And I thought...THIS, this transient medium, is where this history is being recorded, and I started taking screenshots. The only other time I can remember something in the news SO DOMINATING the posts on my feed was right after Trump won in 2016 (not trying to bring politics into this)...and even that waned after a day or two. It's been like this solid for a while now.

I'm thinking it might not be a bad idea to take some screen shots of our text messages, twitter and Instagram feeds, etc. too.

Not that  journaling about all this is a bad idea.   We can do that too and it will be valuable.  But these transitory things, these memes and short messages and links and pictures we are sharing over social media, are like the "Civil War letters" of our time.    They show what we were sharing, reading, doing at the time. 

Edited March 30, 2020 by goldenecho

[ieta_cassiopeia]

That is a great idea. In fact, it's worth considering doing this, and then curating and printing it out afterwards. Get the children involved if possible and practicable. Then send a copy to the local history research library.

Ephemera are a big part of how historians piece together social/popular history. They'll know what the politicians did no matter what we do. But it's people making an effort to save their own recollections of what happened that give the broader picture of what living through a particular time was like. And let's face it, most social media's search facilities are not very good at the best of times, let alone 30, 50 or 100 years after they are past their peak of popularity. (100 years' time, and they probably won't exist outside records like the one @goldenecho proposes.