Social time traveling

About 1,5 year ago I started using an application called Timehop Abe – a social media time capsule of me. If you haven’t heard of it yet; its concept is pretty simple and straightforward – the app shows your digital life story told by you – in short; it shows your pictures/uploads of a year ago on that exact day.

You receive an e-mail in case you posted something on that exact day a year ago. You will see your past self. Sometimes it can be rather confronting; e.g. you see an awkward upload/photo and think: “Oh I have moved way forward in a year!” other times it feels like it was a day ago..  And then there’s that day your exes show up in your inbox..

In such a connected world it’s sometimes good to see what kind of things (or bullshit) you posted a year ago, what you felt at that moment, where you were, whom you were with, and more. Pure self-reflection.

Recently a new player entered the market of social time traveling. ThrowBack is an iPhone app that captures a photo but does not save it to your phone. Instead the photo is thrown into the future and emailed back to you and those you share it with at a specific or random time, anywhere from 1 month to 5 years from the date the photo was taken…

Think of the embarrassing party photos you normally share directly on Facebook/Instagram etc… Now you get the surprise of a nice memory some time in the future at a random moment.

In an era where our photos travel around on countless sharing platforms, ThrowBack provides a unique opportunity to forget your memories so they can be remembered again.. One word of warning: use caution when including people you are dating.

Both applications show a new way of rediscovering yourself, as I mentioned before – pure self-reflection. Predicting the future you is way harder than reliving the past you.

Ask yourself; if you could send your future self a message right now, what would it be?

Ps. For those still using e-mail and interested in e-mailing themselves in the future, check futureme.org

Ps2. Want the featured image as a wallpaper? Click here!

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