New Delhi, Dec. 27 -- This year was the first time Spandan Banerjee did not share his Spotify Wrapped on social media. "I often grieve through music," says the 31-year-old musician and product designer from Kolkata. "So a sad song I played on loop for a few days became my most played track." Music he tunes into at night to fall asleep also made it into his top songs. Neither, he feels, accurately captures his "year in music".

Banerjee's grouse points to a growing discomfort with how apps have come to dictate our year-end reflections. From Spotify Wrapped and YouTube Recap to X's AI-generated summaries of our tweets and LinkedIn's Year In Review, Google Photos' memory slides, the timeline from Google Maps, and the tallies offered by readi...