Life’s full of surprises. A recent one for us was learning how much kids adore our photobooks.

‘Flo (age 3), what do you think of this book?’ “I love it!”

Discovering kids love Popsa photobooks was a wow moment for us. We’ve had a big thumbs up from adults already, but seeing Flo Roberts (age 3) fall in love with her Popsa photobook (full of pictures of her and her family,) to the point of taking it to bed with her, really surprised us.

It was the same for Flo’s brothers. So we asked ourselves – does that make the Roberts family (@dontbesorry2) all coincidentally smitten with Popsa photobooks, or do other kids love them too? Time for a little bit of research. We gave nine kids photobooks full of family pics and filmed their super cute reactions.

Watch the videos

“Children develop self-identity through self-observation and information from their social world.”

So what is it with kids and photobooks? One interesting theory from Dr. Jim Taylor and the world of popular psychology is that children develop self-identity through self-observation and information from their social world. Seeing photobooks full of family life – and their place in it – is a really exciting moment of self discovery for them.

We talked to Flo’s mum Sarah and she described how Flo and her brothers run to get their photobooks when their grandparents and other grown-ups visit their house. They sit them down and chat through every photo. Undoubtedly, it’s a far more sociable behaviour than if they were distracted by a digital device!

Watch Flo receive her first Popsa photobook

“Every photo triggered a story.”

The writer Stephane Lavoire in ‘Modern Photography Is Changing How We Remember Our Lives,’ remembers as a child sitting next to his grandmother on the couch with an old box of Polaroids. She recalled where each photo was taken, each one triggering a story and bringing the images to life. They laughed and cried and he learnt more about her than he’d ever known before.

From the research, it seems we get a warm and fuzzy feeling reliving family history with photos and stories. It also provides a meaningful way for kids to learn, grow, and bond more deeply with loved ones.

“The difference between the ‘book generation’ and the ‘screen generation.”

But what about kids growing up in a digital dominant world? British neuroscientist Dr. Susan Greenfield in her book ‘The Quest for Identity in the 21st Century,’ looks at the difference between the ‘book generation’ and the ‘screen generation’ and discusses how learning in an active or passive state affects brain development. She believes stimulation from TV and computer games is passive learning and could desensitise childrens’ brain activity and inhibit their individuality.

Reassuringly, we’re told that photobooks and prints fall into the active learning category and encourages questions and storytelling. This helps to stimulate kids’ sense of individuality in a really positive way.

“Where are the pictures of my Christmases?’ To which my shameful answer is, ‘I’m not sure.”

But where do we start with the trillion photos on our smartphones? We know making family photobooks can feel daunting. Journalist Julia Llewellyn Smith describes a family Christmas at her parents with her daughter and an old family photo album – “She’s enchanted to see her family history rolled out and revived. But after leafing through the final page, she turns to me, puzzled, ‘Where are the pictures of my Christmases?’ To which my shameful answer is, ‘I’m not sure.” Joanna says unlike her parents, she doesn’t have a pile of albums chronicling her daughter’s early life, and like many parents of her generation, she owns just a couple of school portraits and a few framed baby shots.

At Popsa, that’s why our core principle is beautifully easy-to-make photobooks. We want you to be able to whip together a book for your kids in under five minutes, so that they grow up learning about their social world and their loved ones in the most active and engaging way possible.

And, because we’ve seen firsthand how joyful the response is, we’re giving you 25% off photobooks to delight the kids in your life today.

CODE: KIDS19

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