Myspace and MTV: how will future historians study the 21st century?

Jane Winters and John Wills discuss how social media and digital records chart the story of recent decades – and how they pose a challenge for historians

Published: October 29, 2025 at 9:12 AM

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From social-media accounts to TV shows and video games, recent decades offer an enormous wealth of material for future historians to explore. But what are the challenges presented by this vast amount of data? And how will historical researchers a hundred years from now make sense of 2025? Matt Elton spoke to historians Jane Winters and John Wills to answer these questions – and find out how the ephemeral digital archives of our current era might differ from the historical sources of previous generations.

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Authors

Matt EltonPodcast editor

Matt Elton is the podcast editor at HistoryExtra

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