physicaljournals

Physical record keeping

Physical memory aid

My journals aid my memory to an extent. I don’t write in them everyday & when I do, I don’t put that much information in them that helps me categorise; where I was, when I was writing, what the time was, I don’t always remember to date the pages, etc. Yet, they aid my memory still, and in their physicality I can access them easily. I can find different traces of me in my journals, in comparison to my data. My writing is quite literally me; it tells me exactly what I was thinking. Whereas I can only speculate my thoughts through my data. However, my data tells me exactly what I was doing, and I can only speculate those details through my journals (unless its explicitly written).

I explored the dates: 15-05-2024 &

10-09-2023 in my Google & Spotify data, and the data told me a lot of information about my exact patterns online. The Spotify data especially helped me recall the events that were unfolding on the 10-09-2023. But what information did it leave out that my journals can provide?

15-05-2024

On 15-05-2024 I was on Instagram, on Google, until 00:14 (the 15th early morning). I wouldn’t particularly say this is out of the blue and therefore it is not that memorable, so what information have I really gained from this data (besides stats of my bad habits)?

I looked for the date in my journal and found this entry »

What this can tell me is (a possibility of) the “why?”. Why was I on Instagram late at night? Maybe I was de-stressing from the adrenaline of a minimal car accident? Maybe I wasn’t… but it provides more context to my online habits and aids my memory recall.

On 10-09-2023 I spent 6.26 hours on Spotify, with majority of that listening happening overnight. The ability to see the exact time of listening and milliseconds spent is quite conducive to prompting my memory; without the significance of the ‘when’ this listening session would not be memorable. It is the fact that I can see the hours spent on Spotify that allows me to understand the ‘why’ (why was I listening to Spotify for 6 hours over night?). From this data I deduced that the ‘why’ was because I was on an overnight flight home, & I was listening to music as I didn’t want to hear the sounds of the plane.

But What more can my writing tell me?

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It can tell me where I was before and after this listening session. It tells me that on 09-09-2023 I was in fact at the airport leaving Bali, and apparently in high spirits. My journal also tells me that I didn’t feel up to writing on the plane or when I landed, but the next day I was feeling tired & blue.

Through the journals paired with my data, I have learnt a lot about this time period; what I was thinking & doing & feeling, in such a detailed way that I am almost in that moment.

09-09-2023

11-09-2023

It is safe to say that with access to data,

it will be hard to lose a moment (online) forever. And I have no problem with that really, it helps me and my memory, I’m just not sure how it makes me feel…

…weird feelings…