Topic
The pragmatics of adoption — the first 30 days, curation, measuring success, data portability, and the invisibility principle.
21 essays in this topic
How to record your grandparents' or parents' life stories on iPhone: what to ask, how to record well, and an app that keeps voice with the people and photos.
9 min readA family legacy app should keep stories, voices, recipes and time capsules for generations. What to look for on iPhone and iPad, and how to start.
9 min readA practical guide to saving baby and kids photos, videos and voices on Android: back them up, add context, share privately and keep them for decades.
8 min readHow to record family voice stories on Android: what to record, how to start in seconds, and where to keep recordings so the whole family can hear them.
8 min readThe best family stories come out at the dinner table, not in an interview. How to catch one on your phone in twenty seconds, and what to do with it after.
5 min readSixty questions that actually produce answers, why specific beats biographical, and how to ask them without turning an afternoon into an interview.
6 min readA practical method for capturing a parent's life in short recordings — how to raise it, what to ask, and how to handle the parts nobody wants to discuss.
5 min readA realistic method for getting a shoebox of prints, slides and albums into digital form — including why identification matters more than resolution.
5 min readMagnetic tape has a shorter deadline than paper. What to do with VHS, camcorder cassettes, cine film and voicemails before the format outlives the playback.
5 min readWhat to put in a family time capsule, when to open it, and why the digital version survives house moves and clear-outs that buried boxes rarely do.
5 min readA two-day plan that produces a real, usable family archive — what to do on Saturday, what to do on Sunday, and what to deliberately skip.
6 min readReunions gather the last people who remember, then waste the weekend on small talk. Ten activities that capture real stories without making anyone perform.
5 min readMark Weiser's 'calm technology' principle argues the best tools disappear into family life — supporting connection without demanding constant attention.
8 min readEngagement metrics measure attention, not connection. Here's what relationship science actually says about how to know if family technology is working.
8 min readData portability is the difference between a family that owns its memories and one renting them from a platform that could disappear next Tuesday.
9 min readFamilies can describe their problems with painful clarity but struggle to envision solutions. Here's how to design technology that actually serves them anyway.
9 min readBehavior science maps the four weeks most families experience—and shows exactly where adoption stalls before a lasting habit takes root.
8 min readWhat collective action theory explains about why involving the whole family in shared memory keeping is genuinely difficult—and what design can do about it.
9 min readWhen storage is infinite, the challenge shifts from keeping to choosing. What archivists and memory researchers say about meaningful curation.
9 min readMost family memory tools assume surplus time, reliable devices, and steady internet — conditions that millions of working families simply don't have.
10 min readMost families intend to print their photos and almost none do. Decoding that gap reveals something real about permanence, memory, and what families need.
11 min readHow cultures preserved wisdom — oral tradition, elders, ritual, diaspora identity, and the shift from collective to fragmented memory.
The link between family connection and lifespan — purpose, social integration, shared meals, grandparenting, and legacy work.
Why families feel isolated despite constant contact — narrative fragmentation, dispersion, busyness, and performance over connection.
Narrative work as integration — coherence over fragmentation, meaning-making, safe remembering, witnessing, and holding complexity.
How pain moves through families — silence and secrecy, protective adaptations, and repair without retraumatization.
The exhausting reality of today's tools — memory across seven platforms, decision fatigue, and the intention-action gap.