As the month of January stretches out before us, it does what it always does: asks us to become entirely new people overnight. It is a time for battling with our commitments to resolutions, new ambitions, diets and detox regimens – which are mostly well-intentioned. It’s also a good time to be kind to ourselves, and to reflect on what the festive season has taught us, however we’ve chosen to celebrate.
For many, we’ve just had perhaps our annual immersion into the messy richness of extended families and community. Celebrations are often inter-generational, sometimes cross-cultural, and always a melting pot of diverse tastes and preferences. While our families and closest friend networks are frequently those most similar to our styles, there are often tensions, creative or otherwise, that form part of the seasonal fun.
We can get an insight into how the people closest to us live their lives day-to-day in a way we’re insulated from at other times of the year. What are the anchor points that structure people’s days? How much time do the various members spend on their phone? Who enjoys the nostalgia of looking through family photo albums? And you notice the quiet differences too. Some families orbit around the television, some run a 5k on Christmas (and New Year) morning, and some are dominated by connection to their phones.
While we have general concerns about the amount of screen time our young people devote to online gaming, the distribution of digital skills is becoming more varied and fragmented, with an increasing focus on supporting potentially socially isolated older people through technology solutions.
Families can be more geographically scattered these days, and perhaps an ageing relative is moving into a supported accommodation setting. Maybe a key gift this year was a phone with better connection potential than the prized Nokia 3310 that has seen them through the previous two decades. And the very people who hold the most family history are often the least able to “keep up” with the tools everyone else uses without thinking.
If our festive celebrations have been more of a solitary pursuit, the sense of reflection and connection is often still renewed by the turn of a new year. Our resolutions may involve reconnecting with old friends, long-lost relatives, or people we treasure who live overseas. Perhaps a new communication route might be just the way to revitalise that link.
So the question can become: what kinds of connections are realistic, sustainable, and emotionally meaningful for people with different lives, abilities, and life stages?
Whether we’ve connected with people in the same location or simply phoned a treasured person to wish them Happy New Year, the sound of people’s voices can be transformative. Even a short conversation can be a transformative audible snapshot. The story shared by an ageing relative about how the world looked and felt to them was perhaps told not for the first time, but maybe it resonated more this year.
Capturing these audio snapshots is something that technology is now better placed to do in more meaningful ways. Personalised audiobooks are one route to consider as voices are tied to memory, not just communication. We all know this instinctively, even if we rarely articulate it. A voice carries more than information. It carries mood, warmth, humour, fatigue, tenderness. It carries identity. It carries time.
Unlike traditional keepsakes which are often physical or visual: photos, letters, heirlooms. Audio has always been harder to hold onto. Unless your family is the type to record everything (and many are not), voices tend to live only in the moment. They’re vivid, and then they’re gone.
A personalised audiobook doesn’t just let you listen to a story. It lets you listen to a tale through someone. A childhood favourite read in a beloved voice becomes more than entertainment. It becomes a kind of intimate artifact. Something you can return to, share with friends and family, and replay again and again when you need to hear a loved one’s voice.
January is the moment to think about this because it’s less about spectacle and more about intention. If your resolution this year includes reconnecting with people you love, maintaining bonds across distance, or making sure family stories aren’t lost to time, then creating personalised audiobooks is a practical, emotionally intelligent step. It’s not another platform you download and abandon. It’s a way of embedding connection into something you can revisit.
The process is simple, accessible, and yet deeply powerful in tapping into how stories capture and maintain community wisdom and familial bonds. Whether it’s for your own personal entertainment or to enlighten a new generation, by simply recording a short voice sample a personalised audiobook of a childhood favourite tale can be created.
Take the opportunity as part of the refreshening of our collective outlooks to explore how new solutions might solve age-old problems. At the heart of much current digital development is the ideas of personalisation, better meeting people’s diverse needs, and building and maintaining connections. The technology supporting audio storytelling is at a good phase to help you in this pursuit and maintain the resolve of your commitments to have a healthier, happier 2026.