I ve been thinking about this a lot lately. I know that history starts with the presence of written artifacts but were does it stop? Does digital technology and archives interrupt history in the sense that everything will be documented so well that historic study won’t be need after say the 2000? Or will history adapt to the new non material documents and artifacts of our time?
Really curious as to what you think about this! Hope my question is not too vague, I’m coming from an arts background so that happens some times.
It doesn't. In many ways, the work of a historian starts now - preserving primary sources, documenting life, saving artifacts from being destroyed, and generally trying to make the future historian's job easier.
You can also see it here that a lot of history is comparative to the modern world - to understand the history of food, you often have to compare it to modern society, or study current events to understand how the past may have worked. COVID-19 probably gives historians of past plagues some insight into how and why humans acted in some cases.
As to your question about digital documentation, I dare you to try to find your high school photos from your first digital camera. Hard drives die, storage media become obsolete, and most importantly, a lot of things just aren't worth saving in the moment. We'll probably retain records of the President's speeches, but the prime minister of Lithuania's epic declaration in 2023 that won't be seen as relevant until 2 years later?
Lastly, media bias still exists. In 100 years, historians will stumble on a decade of fake news documenting all kinds of things spread on Facebook. Did people really believe that vaccines were caused autism?
I'm sure the day the printing press was invented, someone said that now everything would be copied so often that nothing could be lost anymore.
In this subreddit, the rule is 20 years back, but that's because we need rigid rules. But in reality, historians have to pull from all places and times to learn what they can of the past.
unfortunately i’m not sure when history becomes the present—or if it ever stops! however, historians studying the digital age will still be 100% necessary because history isn’t just about trying to figure out what happened, but interpreting and explaining it. historians studying the 21st century won’t be doing the same research historians trying to understand ancient china do, but they will still look at historical trends, the context surrounding certain events, and the way events are interconnected. for example, the job of a historian studying the US 2008 presidential election isn’t just to find out who won and by how much, but to understand the significance of obama’s win, why he won (such as the context of the bush presidency, evolving social values, and trends in presidential elections), and the way his presidency affected the culture and social values of america during his presidency. that’s something you need training for, not just the ability to google election records!