I think, when the issue is carefully considered, that selfies and lunch portraits make more sense than paper diaries.

A picture of the squid you ate for lunch with the caption “GIANT SQUID!” doesn’t seem all that different to me than recording what you ate in a diary. “Ate squid for lunch. Delicious. Texture of slimy leather.”  The main difference is time. Tweeting a picture of your drink next to your face is much faster than writing “I had a Pina Colada at Trader Vics. My hair was perfect.” (The photo is also less cliche and easier to understand than my handwriting.)

Similarly, a picture of your bloated, red-eyed, tear stained face with the phrase “Life after bitch” is much more effective than endless whinging about your break up and about how she didn’t appreciate you and “What does she see in that p&#@k anyway! I mean, besides a good job and lots of money and perfect hair and great fashion sense and his own private jet what’s he got that I haven’t got? I mean, like what’s a private apartment in Paris when you’ve got my wit and, well, my wit?” (Oh, like you’ve never been dumped for someone like that before.)

Granted, part of the problem with electronic files and storage is that the formats are always changing. I’ve spent many hours moving files from one format to another and making and storing various back ups. (I also now have no way to read old floppy discs.) If we can’t find a way to extract the old data, we lose large pieces of history, but I’m sure some enterprising soul is already working on that problem.

Selfies and photos of your lunch and photos of the jerk on the train and of the great sunset, when taken together, are a terrific record of a life. Even better, they’ve got color and expression.

Now if I just had a better filing system for it all.