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![](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/548c42e8e16b506965d29c300a3b9c34703125c6\/0_1042_6496_3896\/master\/6496.jpg?width=140&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=e25bf71bf301bf57ae0a5aa2816ba5a9\" "\\"Memory")
Google\u2019s Street View helps us navigate the world, but it\u2019s also a portal on forgotten places and secret momentsI am leaning against a wall outside my secondary school in my home town of Canterbury, waiting for my mother to pick me up. She is late, as usual. I rest my head on the stone wall, which is obsidian smooth with the occasional sharp edge. I can feel a flinty knuckle of rock pressing into the base of my skull. I shift uncomfortably in my non-regulation high heels and watch the other parents come and go. I am irritated and worried I won\u2019t have enough time to finish my GCSE coursework that evening. And then she arrives, and I slam the car door shut with more force than is needed.\nOnly I am no longer a sullen teenager and I am not in Canterbury. I am on my sofa in south London, walking the streets of my former home town on Google Street View. I drag and drop Pegman, the Street View icon, outside my old school. He flails for a moment before freefalling feet-first, and then I am a teenager, walking the passageways of my youth. I can feel the cold stones under my hand as I trace my palm along the wall. I spent so many afternoons waiting for my mother in this spot that it feels as if there is an imprint of me forever leaning there, a ghostlike presence for today\u2019s students to bustle past. Continue reading…Technology | The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Google\u2019s Street View helps us navigate the world, but it\u2019s also a portal on forgotten places and secret moments I am leaning against a wall outside my secondary school in my home town of Canterbury, waiting for my mother to pick me up. She is late, as usual. I rest my head on the stone …<\/p>\n