Is my life’s work slowly being erased by the Internet?

I learned a valuable lesson in high school when a paper that I had saved to my computer (an Apple IIe) was lost. With a typing speed hovering around 10 words a minute, it was painful. Since that experience, I have backed up my data and made sure I knew how to restore files. Later I learned about the dangers of digital media (it degrades more quickly than paper, and formats change (try opening…