Lo-fi memories
To REMEMBER Your Vacation,
FORGET Your Camera
Does capturing a special moment on camera mean keeping it forever,
or never really having it in the first place?
Research suggests that the act of taking photos distances (distract) you from your experiences, and weakens your ability to remember them.
Taking pictures weakens our memory of the scene in front of us.
~My 12-Megapixel Brain~
The basic takeaway here is that cameras impact our memories
— but it's not clear exactly how or why.
One theory is that
cameras, when they're not used mindfully, distract us and distance us from the present moment. We SPLIT our ATTENTION between life itself and using the gadget in our hands. Since you can't form a vivid memory without paying attention, it makes sense that we'd lose track of scenes we photographed.
Another slightly different theory
involves a concept known as OFFLOADING. Basically, _we outsource a lot of mental chores_ — like REMEMBERING friends' phone numbers or mapping out driving routes — to our phones. we're becoming mentally dependent on computers, less likely to remember information itself than how to access it online. The internet, and our gadgets, have essentially become EXTERNAL BRAINS. ```Whether that's a good or bad thing is a matter of opinion,``` but it's clear that by taking a picture of something, you free your brain to forget it. It knows the scene been offloaded to your camera — _your other brain._
Which means IT'S UP TO each of US TO MAKE that DECISION. WHAT MEMORIES DO YOU WANT IN your actual, HUMAN BRAIN, and which ones are you fine offloading?
It's a personal choice,
but the next time you see something you want to remember the lo-fi way, it might be worth it to put your phone down — or at least concentrate as you click.
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