Are Social Networking Sites Killing The Photo Album?

Will Social Network Sites Kill The Paper Photo Album? How Safe Are Your Pictures? Will Modern History Be Lost Forever?


Wow - isn't it strange how an discussion on angle of photography and social media that you have never even thought of crops up twice in two days. In this case, I was enduring my daily commute and had my camera with me as I wanted to firm up on an element of its functionality.


This prompted a conversation with the lady opposite who turned out to be a lapsed 35mm photographer who was now entering the digital world. At one point she said to me "You know, these days very few people print their photographs and I'm really worried for history and genealogy". Her point being, to which I readily agreed , was that so many people were posting their pictures on social networking sites rather than printing them that in years to come all that family and local history will be lost forever. 


There'll be no more digging through boxes or albums to show of pictures of old Uncle so and so or to look at the car someone had 30 years ago. That could all be gone.


So I was amazed when this article from the Paisley Daily Express titled 'Social networking sites could be consigning Buddies photo albums to history'
popped into my in box.


It relates a similar story about the so called 'Facebook' generation and quotes Liz McNamara, marketing director for GetTheLabel.com as saying:

“This research reveals the real culture change there has been around the way we use and display our photographs.

“The switch to digital is almost universal and for the Facebook generation, paper pictures and albums are obsolete.”

The report also discusses how backing up images is of little concern to some so there is a far higher possibility that history really will be lost forever.


As someone who can add history to his list of interests I really find this quite scary. I always looked on today as being 'the history of tomorrow' and photography as being the ultimate archivist. It seems that this could no longer be true and it's something I find quite disturbing.


What are your thoughts? Do you print for posterity?



Kevin


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Have You Planned What To Do If Your SME Suffers An IT or Premises Failure?

Back in February I wrote a piece entitled "Backup Those Vital  Photos And Keep Them Safe". In this piece I wrote about different backup methods that were available to not only photographers but all users whether they used their PCs or MACs for personal or business use.

I had tucked knowledge of its existence away in my mental archives until today when I came across this article talking about "Business Continuity for SMBs" which is extends of my article and talks about how to plan what to do in the event of an issue with the technology or premises you use for your business.

I agree with the author that for most SMBs the plan would be quite but plan you should 'just in case' and keep in mind what I said about those backups.

Back-up Those Vital Photos And Keep Them Safe

I first wrote the entry below a couple of years ago and posted it on what was my then new blog. I was the first entry and it received no hits. Not to be disheartened I left it a couple of years and didn't do much else until I created this blog which thankfully is somewhat more successful.

A few recent events, namely by son dropping a NetBook PC scrambling the hard disk, my wifes PC deciding to set itself back to factory state, formatting the hard disk in the process and then the recent Christchurch earthquake reminded me of this piece I wrote way back then.

On reading it the same is as true today as it was then, especially if you have valuable documents on your PC such as photos or carefully crafted documents for your work. Your documents don't have to be valuable in the financial sense, even if they are of purely sentimental value they deserve a little thought into how they should be preserved.

There was a time when your documents would be wholly on paper and keeping copies safe for posterity was quite a task. Nowadays it is so much easier and just needs the application of a little time, thought and perhaps a little money to make sure your documents it happens.

The piece, which I have edited a little to bring it up to date, read as follows: