The new generation of the family time capsule

Time capsules preserve our most important momentos and memories. From childhood photographs to a daily newspaper, they act as a museum-like container that allows us to remember past years. Traditionally, we make time capsules during our primary school years, filling them with our school memories and childhood aspirations. Yet now, as we emerge from a year like no other, positive, emotionally charged memories incorporated into physical mementos hold more value than ever before and as such, it is an ideal time to record our lockdown life in a capsule.

Unlike the traditional time capsule which is placed underground, creating a capsule that we can look back on in years to come allows us a way to reflect and share our most unforgettable years in living memory. Digging up our most poignant and personal lockdown memories that we have captured on our social media accounts is PastBook, a unique instant photobook service.

PastBook uses our digital images and turns them into an image-based memoir – preserved in time forever. The platform’s sophisticated technology automatically creates a unique capsule for each user by selecting the highlights of their Instagram, Facebook, Dropbox, Flickr, Picasa, computer, phone or tablet and instantly arranging them into a high-quality photo book.

Wouter Staatsen, CEO of PastBook, discusses the value of preserving our everyday memories after a year like no other:

“After a year that will go down in history books, it is essential that we all have a way to remember our own personal experiences and memories. Traditionally, this would have been through written letters, newspapers or printed photographs which would be placed in a time capsule.Yet today, with 32.05 million Instagram users in the United Kingdom alone, our social media accounts have become a way for us to preserve our most important memories. As such, PastBook has created a way for us to all have our own time capsule, taken from our most precious shared memories.

Today, with so many of us documenting every aspect of our lives – from engagements and gender reveals, to what we had for dinner – we now all have a digital photo album of our most important life memories, one which we can look back on in years to come. At PastBook, we create well-curated, stylistic logs of these social accounts and turn them into image-based memoirs – preserved forever. As such, we can now have a tangible way to relive our past.”