The common habit of taking screenshots or photos of information with the intention of reviewing it later may actually lead to reduced memory recall, according to research from Binghamton University. This phenomenon, termed the "photo-taking impairment effect," suggests that individuals remember less about an event or item after taking a picture of it than if they had simply viewed it.
Americans widely use smartphones, with approximately 90% owning one, and a significant use is for photography. While individuals take an average of 20 photos daily and store thousands on their devices, the benefit of these images is contingent on revisiting them. Previous studies indicated that individuals with memory loss could improve recall by reviewing photos of their day. However, the new research highlights the negative impact when these captured images are never consulted again.
"Unless you are actively reviewing those images as cues … it is unlikely to benefit you," stated Sophia Fabrizio, an author of the study titled “Digital amnesia: The aftermath of a screenshot.”
In the study, participants were shown various art pieces and instructed to screenshot some of them. Later, when asked to identify which pieces they had seen from a selection of similar images, those who had screenshotted the art performed worse than those who had only viewed it. The effect was observed even when participants were aware their images would be deleted immediately, indicating that the act of capturing the image itself, rather than the storage of it, may play a role.
Researchers theorize several contributing factors to this effect. One is divided attention, where the act of taking a photo diverts cognitive resources away from memory formation. Another is cognitive offloading, the tendency to rely on external storage rather than internal memory when information is perceived as readily available elsewhere. The third theory is attentional disengagement, suggesting that the act of photographing can create a psychological distance from an experience, thus impairing memory of it.
To combat this effect, researchers suggest alternative methods for remembering information, such as writing it down. This process engages the brain more actively in encoding the information, a step that may be bypassed when relying solely on digital captures that are seldom reviewed.