What Survives Us Online: Not as Much as You Think

A historian discusses why our digital legacies might not last so long

Terry Sullivan,

AARP

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Published June 17, 2026

a digitized illustration shows an r i p headstone with a series of floppy disks aligned behind it

We may be losing track of important memories faster in the digital age than we did in the analog era.

Glenn Harvey

Key takeaways

Digital records can vanish as platforms fade and formats become obsolete.
Physical items may endure longer because they can survive unattended storage.
Families searching a loved one’s digital legacy face gaps and must balance persistence with acceptance.

“The internet never forgets,” people say. That’s often intended as a warning against posting material that could later be seen as embarrassing. But the warning might also make us believe that we can easily preserve and archive our own personal memories for future generations. All those texts, emails, social media posts, photos and videos will live forever, right?

We are likely fooling ourselves about the permanence of our digital legacy, says Thomas S. Mullaney, a professor of history at Stanford University, mainly because digital platforms come and go. What’s more, materials you may save on “external media,” such as physical discs or an external hard drive, face the possibility of being incompatible with future tech.

In his new book, How We Disappear: A Personal History of Information, Mullaney writes about the deaths of his parents and suggests we may be losing track of important memories faster in the digital age than we did in the analog era.

“When the time comes that my son is combing through my materials after my death,” he says, “chances are he’s not going through my Slack app on my iPhone as I went through my father’s old mortgage statements, pay stubs and family photographs.”

Here’s how Mullaney addressed other questions:

Does information captured and stored digitally disappear more quickly than physical, or non-digitized, info?

I feel comfortable saying that digital loses out every time to analog. That’s because, unlike digital materials, analog materials benefit from something known as “benign neglect,” which is a technical term for leaving something in boxes in the attic. Analog materials can languish there for centuries as long as humidity, fire, bugs, mold, etc., don’t hasten the process of their destruction.

Does this mean we should always have a printed version of our digital photos?

I would prefer not to have my kids or grandkids have the same unnamed, confusing family photo albums I inherited. I didn’t know who any of these people were, although I knew they were my family. Even as a kid, it bothered me. So maybe I would label these kinds of photos. I think that’s where we all can make decisions in life that extend into that kind of afterlife, so to speak.

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When trying to gather all the memories of a loved one who has passed away, what advice would you give about the expectations of finding or recovering the entire legacy?

You have to combine two seemingly contradictory instincts. One is that you have to not be OK with the gaps. You need tenacity to keep looking for your loved one’s photos, videos and other digital materials. But you also have to be able to stand in front of a historical record that has more holes than Swiss cheese and be at peace with it. If you’re too hung up on the gaps, you become paralyzed by all the silences. So you keep going and make sense the best you can. You need a balance of the two.

My guess is that everyone should put together important documents or convey to someone where things are, so that their family isn’t scrambling for them.

Yes. There’s an incredible amount of paperwork for death. We found the number of Dad’s old stockbroker. I’m calling this guy and I’m saying, “Dad died.” It was really a question of “What do we do?” And we were going through expired life insurance policies — it’s like, “Where is the money for Mom?”

So you’re calling up stockbrokers and going through paperwork, and then you’re breaking down over the kitchen sink. And then you’re calling somebody about credit cards, and then you’re upstairs crying. And then you’re choosing the urn, and then break down. And then you’re trying to call the internet company to get access for the password, and then you’re breaking down. It’s utterly bizarre and also the most mundane; it’s like doing your taxes at your wedding.

Are there creative ways we might use digital media, like photography or video, to help us create more compelling memories for our digital legacy?

On Instagram, a guy was saying, “It took me many years to realize how to take pictures at my birthday.” Now, instead of asking someone to take pictures of him blowing out his candles, he’s the one who holds the iPhone camera, panning it around at the faces of the family members who are singing to him. That’s a better way to take a birthday photo or video, it turns out.

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The key takeaways were created with the assistance of generative AI. An AARP editor reviewed and refined the content for accuracy and clarity.

Terry Sullivan has written for The New York Times, Consumer Reports, PCMag and other outlets.