Are we taking too many pictures? An investigation of the impact of smartphone photography on memory

ABSTRACT

Smartphones are a fundamental part of modern life and have resulted in a vast increase in photo-taking. How smartphone use can affect cognitive processes, including memory, is poorly understood, but research shows taking photographs can result in a photo-taking-impairment effect. Across 3 laboratory experiments, we aimed to replicate the impairment effect and shed light into the underlying mechanisms by manipulating encoding type (intentional vs. incidental) and recognition stimuli (zoomed-in vs. complete paintings). During the presentation of a mock museum tour, participants observed or photographed presented artworks. In Experiment 1 and 3 following intentional encoding, a photo-taking impairment effect impacting accuracy and confidence was observed. In Experiment 2, this impairment effect did not persist when encoding was incidental. Zoomed-in images did not modulate the photo-taking-impairment effect in Experiment 3. Results are discussed in relation to cognitive offloading and attentional disengagement hypotheses and appear to oppose attentional disengagement as a contributing mechanism.

KEYWORDS:

• autobiographical memory
• smartphone photography
• photo-taking
• memory impairment

Acknowledgement

We thank Debora Colacecchi and Giuseppe Burgio for their help with participant testing and recruitment. We also thank anonymous reviewers for helpful suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The full materials, datasets and RStudio scripts used to analyse data of all Experiments are publicly available at: https://figshare.com/s/3e1a86932d3279da3b7d. Please note that the dataset.rar files also include columns which report scores of the standardized cognitive assessments that all participants completed. This additional data was not discussed in the present manuscript as they are not relevant to our discussed hypotheses, but they are available for other researchers to utilize or for later analysis by our research laboratory.