Why taking fewer photos can help you remember more
Most of us take far more photos than we ever look at. There's some evidence that photographing everything can even change what we remember. Here's what the research says, and how taking fewer, more deliberate photos can help.
By the DisCam team ·
The photo-taking impairment effect
In a 2014 study published in Psychological Science, the psychologist Linda Henkel took students on a guided tour of an art museum. They were asked to look at some objects and to photograph others. Afterwards, they remembered fewer of the objects they had photographed, and fewer details about them, than the ones they had only looked at.
Henkel called this the photo-taking impairment effect. One possible explanation is that we treat the camera as a kind of external memory and pay less attention ourselves.
But it depends how you shoot
The same study found an exception. When people zoomed in to photograph a particular part of an object, their memory of it was not impaired. Paying close attention to what to photograph seemed to cancel out the effect.
Later research has painted a more mixed picture. A 2017 study, also in Psychological Science, found that people who took photos during an experience remembered what they saw better, but what they heard less well. Taking photos doesn't simply erase memories. What matters is how much attention you pay.
The camera roll problem
There's a simpler problem too. A trip photographed in a thousand frames is hard to look back on. The good photos are buried among duplicates, screenshots and blurry bursts, so most of them are never seen again.
A small set of deliberate photos is the opposite. You can look through it in a minute, share it as a whole, and remember each moment it shows.
How to take fewer, better photos
- Look first, then shoot. Decide what you're photographing and why.
- Take one frame per moment, not a burst.
- Get closer, or zoom in on the detail that matters.
- Give yourself a limit for the day, the trip or the evening.
- Put the phone away between photos.
- Look back at your photos within a few days, while the memories are fresh.
Why a roll helps
A limit makes all of this easier. With 24 or 36 shots for a whole trip, each photo becomes a choice. That's the idea behind DisCam's rolls: 12, 24 or 36 shots with DisCam Pro, or 5 on the free rolls, with a counter showing how many you have left.
On a Disposable roll you can't even check your shots until you develop it, so there's nothing to do but take the photo and get back to the moment.
