I follow Heather Cox Richardson. Lately, she’s been sharing some texts that went back and forth during the insurrection on January 6, 2021. Oh, my gosh…was that just this year??? The texters were texting things they ought not to have been texting and it’s going to come back and bite them in the butt, I do believe. At any rate, it got me to thinking about the digital footprints we leave behind without giving it one bit of thought.

When my dear friend Sparky died this week, she took with her that close connection we had…in person and digitally. Certainly, during Covid, our connection was nearly exclusively digital. We shared funny memes that were maybe just a little TOO much to put out on our Facebook pages for all to see. We had inside jokes. We talked candidly about everything. I’m really happy I have a treasure trove of her texts that go back over probably five years or more. I have funnies galore. And, I also have private things…the kinds of things you share with your bestie because that’s how you work through things. But they aren’t necessarily things you want your kids finding after your dead, you know what I mean?

So, I have these things on my phone, which means…unless Sparky erased our conversations every time…these things are also on her phone. Oh, they aren’t state secrets or anything illegal, but if certain people found them, they could be hurtful or perhaps even besmirch a reputation…neither of which is particularly pleasant. It made me think about the digital trails we leave behind and where they go when we die and who gets them and what could they do with them and….well, you get the picture.

I keep a lot of text conversations on my phone because they contain photos, phone numbers, the answers to questions, and frankly…memories of my friend or relative. I probably have every text Mr. FixIt and I ever exchanged, which is sweet. I even have some of the texts Mr. Virgo and I exchanged. But sending out texts between friends isn’t the only place our digital footprints leave trails. Our presence on the internet, no matter WHAT we are doing, or WHERE we are doing it, is…out there. It’s in the Cloud…any number of Clouds, really. It’s on old devices, shared devices, pads, tablets, phones, computers, laptops, readers, home assistance devices like Ring and Alexa and Smart TVs.

I gave up a long time ago thinking that any of this was really going to come back and bite me bad. I mean, after all, I’m a blogger and a storyteller and you all probably know more about me through my writing than some of my own family members do. The things I put out here for you to read aren’t secrets or I wouldn’t be putting them out here. However, private conversations between me and my friends and family on my phone is different. 

I’m sure the government officials who were texting directions or updates or whatever during the events of January 6th are pretty upset that the conversations they were having via text are becoming public knowledge. I get that. However, while my friend might be sending me a “you didn’t hear this from me” text, we weren’t in the throes of doing something even slightly illegal. Big difference.

So, what do you do with all that information? Well, you can ask the executor of the estate to erase it from the phone but that’s not always feasible. You can erase the text histories off your devices, which is time consuming and difficult to remember to do. You can make a pact with your friends or the executor of your estate to clean your phone when you’re gone. I think that’s a pretty good way to do it. Never sharing personal information with anyone ever on digital devices would work, but I’ll tell you what…that horse has long since left the barn for all of us, I’d guess. Except this one strange dude we graduated with. I’ll bet he’s never even had so much as an email address his entire life. I asked him once why he didn’t go on Facebook and connect with us…his fellow classmates. He said, “Are you nuts? Voluntarily let the CIA track me? No thanks!” Yeah, well…ok. 

There are articles all over the internet that discuss this subject and ways to “clean up your mess” but I’ll leave that for you to look up. There’s something to be said for minimizing your digital footprint because your data is like glitter…you will never, ever get rid of all of it. Once it’s out there, it’s out there forever. I’m glad I grew up when I did so my really stupid stuff wasn’t recorded for posterity.

❄️

“For nothing is hidden that will not be made manifest, nor is anything secret that will not be known and come to light.”

Luke 8:17 ESV