Digital Biography

It occurs to me that my entire adult life could be chronicled in terms of my march towards further computerization:

1984 -- First computer game (Zork II, Apple IIe)
1986 -- Went digital with written documents (Word Juggler, Apple IIe)
1987 -- First email account (VMS VAX system)
1988 -- Went digital with audio analysis (Macintosh Plus)
1989 -- Went digital with graphic layout (Aldus Freehand on Macintosh LC II)
1992 -- First internet email account
1992 -- Used the World Wide Web for the first time
1993 -- Went digital with research (internet newsgroups, CricketGraph, EndNote; all on Macs)
1994 -- Went digital with all writing (Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing, Microsoft Word; my own Apple Powerbook)
1995 -- Went digital with all finances (Intuit Quicken)
1996 -- Went digital with contact & calendar management (Microsoft Outlook; yes, crossed over into the world of PCs, and never looked back, thank you very much)
1997 -- Went digital with publicity (first SKS website, hosted on Mindspring)
2001 -- Went digital with photography (Sony Cyber-shot, Club Photo)
2002 -- Went digital with shopping (Amazon.com)
2002 -- Went digital with yard sales (eBay)
2003 -- Went digital with photo archiving (JASC PhotoAlbum)
2004 -- Went digital/virtual in business (GoToMyPC, Remote Desktop; telecommuting)
2005 -- Went digital with all music (Apple iTunes)
2005 -- Went digital with small talk (MSN Messenger, Trillian)
2005 -- Went digital with phones (VoiP)
2006 -- Went digital with most books (eBooks, Audible)
2006 -- Went digital with silly questions from five-year-old (Wikipedia)

The question is: what will come next? It's hard to imagine an aspect of my life that isn't already somehow tied to an electronic device. I suppose my physical life is still pretty isolated from it; there is nothing about my exercise, or sleep, or diet that is computerized yet. My spiritual life (meditation, prayer) is not digitized, though I hear about people who do that sort of thing.

I think the biggest transition likely to happen is most printed material becoming completely available online. Google keeps pushing for it, and the publishing companies will continue to struggle to find a business model, as the record companies have done. I don't think it will be a sudden shift, but somewhere in the next ten years I expect to be buying no more dead trees.

Entirely digital video entertainment will probably come first, though. I think we have less than five years before we have no more shiny disks.

Entirely digital money is already a reality, I suppose, since 98% of all my financial transactions now happen without a coin or bill changing hands. Still, I'm not sure that currency will go away in my lifetime. Maybe.