As we're in the midst of an experience, we're taking information in and activating areas of the brain, Dr. So what's going on when we take pictures? First, let's look at what happens when we make a memory. The exception, she found, was when they zoomed into a specific detail for their photo-that had no effect on the subjects' memory. She found that participants who took photos of statues could recall fewer details later compared to those who spent a similar amount of time simply looking at the art. Henkel performed two experiments in 2013 that looked at the effect of taking photos in a museum on later recall. Have I been doing it wrong? I turned to Linda Henkel, Ph.D., a psychology professor at Fairfield University in Connecticut who specializes in memory, for insight.ĭr. But is it true? Don't all those vacation albums (analog or digital) help us remember? As an inveterate traveler and a nostalgic person, I've long sought to take a piece of my travels home via my camera lens. Taking a picture is a way of forgetting.” A bit chilling when you stop and think about that. Without a camera, you study a thing more carefully and remember it better. He never takes photos, he said, because “people who take pictures lose their capacity for close observation. But what if whipping out our phones and cameras actually has the opposite effect of what we hope? Acclaimed writer and world traveler Paul Theroux told the Wall Street Journal just that.

And worldwide, people are sharing two billion photos per day across top platforms, according to the Internet Trends Report. A report from Magisto, which makes an app for photo junkies to turn pictures into video, says the average smartphone user takes 150 photos every month (those of us on iPhones really burn it up with 182 a month). For many of us, capturing images of every last moment we experience at home and abroad has become second nature as we seek to preserve memories.

Turns out, I may have been on to something. Unable to take photos, I vowed to pay attention and remember the feeling.

Make memories not things