Photographing, a modern obsession facilitated by smartphones and photo-sharing platforms like Instagram which allows users to take pictures of every detail of happy occasions could be damaging their ability to remember them, according to new research the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
A recent study shows that "taking pictures rather than concentrating fully on the events in front of us" prevents memories from taking hold, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
The condition is described as "photo-taking impairment effect," according to Dr. Linda Henkel of Fairfield University in Connecticut.
"People so often whip out their cameras almost mindlessly to capture a moment, to the point that they are missing what is happening right in front of them," she told the Sydney Morning Herald. "When people rely on technology to remember for them - counting on the camera to record the event and thus not needing to attend to it fully themselves - it can have a negative impact on how well they remember their experiences."
Researchers recruited a group of university students to participate in the experiment. The experiment was carried out in a museum to find out if taking pictures of the exhibits somehow hindered the ability of the subjects to remember what they had seen.
The students were led on a tour at the Bellarmine Museum of Art at Fairfield University and asked to take pictures of the exhibits or just to observe and try to remember the objects on display. Their memory was tested the next day.
Based on the study, people who photographed the exhibits were less accurate in recognizing the objects they had taken pictures of compared with those they had only looked at them.
"These results show how the 'mind's eye' and the camera's eye are not the same," Henkel said in a statement. "Research has suggested that the sheer volume and lack of organization of digital photos for personal memories discourages many people from accessing and reminiscing about them. In order to remember, we have to access and interact with the photos, rather than just amass them."
However, she added that taking a photograph of a specific detail on the object by zooming in on it seemed to help people "preserve memories of the object, not just of the part that was zoomed in on but also the part that was out of frame."
According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Henkel is now investigating whether the content of a photograph - "for example, whether you are in it" affects memory.
