To date, more than 228 million photos have been tagged with a “Throwback Thursday” hashtag on Instagram. #ThrowbackThursday is a hashtag ingrained in our society that encourages us to digitally share our milestones, major life events or most mundane moments from our past for our followers to view, comment and ‘like’. It has completely transformed our memories, by encouraging us all to consistently document our lives, uploading and sharing our best moments, which we can look back on in years to come.

As such, we now all have a ready-made digital photo album, which has been carefully curated with our best photos, stories and “Throwback Thursday” highlights. Reminiscing on our past experiences can trigger a deep feeling of nostalgia for many of us, which not only elevates our mood but serves as an essential psychological function to increase social connectedness to others, the renowned Southampton Nostalgia Scale reveals. Following this, data from Fujifilm has now revealed that this feeling of nostalgia is one that 41% of Brits have felt during the lockdown period through printing, framing and rediscovering the value that a physical photo can bring.

PastBook – a unique instant photo book service – recognise the tangible value that a printed image can bring, from their ability to allow us to recall our memories to the childhood nostalgia they bring. As such, they allow us to tangible way to experience this “Throwback Thursday”, by creating an image-based memoir of our social media images. Using sophisticated technology, PastBook automatically creates a photo book of users’ best Instagram, Facebook, Dropbox, Flickr, Picasa, computer, phone, or tablet photos captured over the past year, and instantly arranges them into a high-quality photo book.

Wouter Staatsen, CEO of PastBook, discusses how our social media accounts now make it easier than ever before to take a stroll down memory lane:

“The ‘Throwback Thursday’ is a symptom of a wider desire to share and celebrate our memories and past experiences. Our social media accounts now make it easier than ever before to regularly take a stroll down memory lane but what is not so easy is making a physical record of this that will last a lifetime of Thursdays. With the power of social media, however, we all have our own, ready-made digital photo album on these accounts.

Social media is a fantastic tool as it can deliver immediate nostalgia, which is an essential psychological function. Yet over the lockdown period, when our social media usage has been higher than ever before, it has been noted that many Brits have rediscovered the value that physical photos can bring. Following this, PastBook is encouraging the nation to make tomorrow the ultimate, physical #throwbackthursday by creating a tangible book of our memories.”