In My Pocket

Every once and a while I do something that brings the size of modern data storage into view. I distinctly remember one day over twenty years ago when I was walking from the library to the computer lab at Spring Arbor University. I had a 3.5 inch floppy disk in my hand that held every piece of writing I had done in the past 5 years plus an array of pictures that I was using for a presentation that day.

I stopped for a moment and looked at the red plastic square and was temporarily in stunned awe at what I was holding. So many hours (days even) of work were encoded on a flimsy circle of magnetic tape protected by a small amount of plastic and a metal plate. All of it could fit in my pocket.

Today, I finally spent some time organizing my music--every CD that I own plus downloaded album--and putting it on my phone. I now carry over 8,000 songs plus all of the pictures I have taken in the past four years, and I've only used up about a quarter of the storage available on my phone. I still remember burning mixed CDs from my collection; now, it's all right here, stored on a device not that much larger than that floppy disk that amazed me two decades ago.

I am humbled by the power that we so casually use every day.