A study published in the journal Memory & Cognition found that taking photos and screenshots can weaken our memory.
The study involved 892 participants across seven experiments. Participants consistently performed worse on memory tests after taking photos.
In the first experiment, participants viewed 44 images of artworks on their phones and were asked either to take a screenshot or simply observe each one. After a 10-minute distraction task, they took a memory test in which they had to identify the original image from three similar versions. They consistently performed worse on images they had screenshotted than on those they had simply observed.
A similar concept is the “Google Effect,” which suggests that we are less likely to remember information when we know we can find it online.
Researchers have proposed several possible explanations. One is that using a camera or phone can distract us or make us less engaged with what is happening around us, leaving the brain with fewer resources to encode the experience into memory.
The main explanation, however, is that the brain makes less effort to store information when it “knows” that it has already been recorded in a photo.
Source: Memory & Cognition
