Sunday, February 28, 2010

God Bless the Delete Key...


for it maketh our lives much less complicated.

DELETE. Did the word even exist before there were computers? You didn't delete a document from a file drawer, you threw it away. You didn't delete a letter, you tore it up and threw it in the trash.

I know it's not a modern word, although the virtual world has brought it to a new level. Erasure was a form of deletion... as in audio tapes and chalk boards. Remember White-Out? That was one way to delete a mistake.

But now... now we think the delete key will undo all our mistakes. We can delete unpleasant emails, comments, even people - from our lists of friends and contacts.Write or say anything, you can always delete it later.

Well, it's not that easy. Just because you can delete any reference to something that happened... it still happened. Just because you can delete a photo, doesn't mean that moment in time never took place. Good grief, if it was only that easy.

2 comments:

Ann said...

Oh yes! if only!!

Anonymous said...

Well said, as I delete an extra key stroke. I use that key a lot, pretty reactionary actually.