in the internet age, the modern-day equivalent of ‘a time capsule’ has emerged.
traditionally, a ‘time capsule’ is a stored under the ground or inside a safety deposit box, or so on, and includes information and items relating to the era in which it was created. newspapers, magazines, personal items, technology items of the day and a variety of other bits and pieces are placed in it to provide whoever opens it with an idea on the way the world was when the capsule was prepared. it could also include messages, letters and warnings for the future.
anyway, the magic and mystery surrounding this practice is that a time capsule usually has a pre-determined opening date some years, decades or even centuries later.
back to our present day, a website called futureme.org is allowing you to open an account which will send you emails in the future, at the date of your choice!
for example, the site shows a publicly-viewable sample of an email prepared by a man called greg who which has sent it to himself in the year 2009, on the day of 25 april. it says “i am now majoring in computer science and dating a girl called michelle.”
what motivates people to follow greg’s example? well, a sense of curiosity and nostalgia.
apparently, there are many people interested in this kind of service. futureme is just one of several web sites already offering it.
the operators of these services are urging people to sign-up and hold onto their email addresses that they input, for several years, in order to receive the messages. naturally, these sites claim to respect user privacy and information security and say that
