What effects will the ubiquity of cameras have on our kids' memories?

You have many more records of your childhood than your parents do.
They have many more than their parents… and on and on.

So I think it will be the same as your childhood, dozens or hundreds of records will get filtered down to a few that mean something, or that go on the wall, and the rest will sit in a box somewhere.

Their box will just be digital. And they’ll wonder how all the 3d video being recorded constantly will affect their children ;)

Even before the advent of digital, it was possible to be overexposed on film. My niece had a father who was fixated on photographing his daughter. He shot at least a roll of 36 exposures every day for the first five years of her life.

But most of those pictures haven’t been looked at in almost 30 years. And now, even with the ubiquity of cameras, it is almost too much to go through as the kids age. My ex has hundreds of pictures of our kids, but last year when our son graduated from high school, she couldn’t put together a nice but succinct timeline of his life for a memory book.

So, yep, lots more documentation, but no increase in relevance.

I don’t think it’s so much the portability of cameras. Cameras have been portable for a very long time. I think its the digital age that makes a difference. The reason why pictures were taken only at special events and stuff in the past was because film was expensive to buy and process. Now you can shoot everything as much as you like without worrying about how much it will cost.

Also, when you took pictures, you spent a lot of effort making sure the specific pic was perfect because you didn’t want to waste film on taking 2 – 3 shots. Now you can take hundreds of pics, delete all the bad ones and have several good shots with almost no effort. You also don’t have to worry about running out of film. If you run out of space on your drive, you can just delete several of the subpar pictures and keep on going.

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Anyway, as for kids memories, it’s too early for me to tell with my daughter. She’s only 4, so remembering events when she was 2 is probably no big deal. But she loves to look at pictures of herself almost weekly. She’s looked at them so much that I think sometimes she fabricates memories of the events. She doesn’t actually remember the event—she just remembers looking at the picture of the event. Does it make a difference? I don’t know.

Sorry to double post. I also have a different take on this. One way digital photography affects my memory is I take pics I would never waste film on. When I go to a convention, I take a picture of every single game I play, even if I already own it. That way, when I get home I can remember every game I played when I look at the pics. I have taken pics of my parking space so I can remember where I parked.

Maybe in the future, pictures will be more than just a recording of special events—maybe more people will do what I do to help remember things in the first place.

They’ll, or at least our children’s grandchildren, will look back at the selfie generation & cringe like never before.

@keobooks: ” One way digital photography affects my memory is I take pics I would never waste film on. ”

This is interesting. Our own memories are likely affected by this. The act of recording (either writing down or taking a photo) likely has an effect on how much or what details we will remember.

I was just listening to an interview with Dr. Julia Shaw, who has done some fascinating research that builds on what we know about how inaccurate our memories actually are. Her study actually involved the construction of memories, which should lead us away from leaning too much on confessions. Anyway, it got me thinking about how much of my memories are likely built with help from the act of viewing old photos of myself. If there were 100 times as many photos, what would my memories of my past be like? What if there had been video of me?

Research has confirmed when we are focused on photographing events, our actual memories of the event are impeded. Our brains don’t code the information as effectively because our concentration is on capturing images through the viewfinder. I can’t remember where I read this, but if I can find the paper or article, I’ll post it.

^ Thanks. I love this stuff. The fact that our intuitions are so divorced from reality in this case is amazing. We really believe our memories. If our memories are truly fiction, it would make sense to really take them less seriously.

Here you go. You’ll hopefully be able to find the paper but let me know if you can’t. I can see if I can access it for you.

As a photographer, I’m guilty of taking lots of photos but I try to put the camera down now and just take in the experience more. I want to remember what I’m seeing (distorted though my memory may be).

Also, I found this about how manipulated photos of an event affect memory. This supports how essential it is that photojournalists don’t manipulate the images they take of events. I remember a recent case where a British photojournalist was fired for manipulating an image taken during the Syrian war.

@Earthbound_Misfit – Great stuff. Thanks.

As a side note, I used to use photography as part of a mindfulness practice. It wasn’t about capturing the moment – it was about using the act of photography to see things differently. It helped me see things from unique angles, become aware of light, color, patterns, and texture. And in the process, it helped me become aware that there is always much to experience right here in the present moment.

That’s a great idea. When I’m writing creatively, and I want to capture a situation, I sometimes just sit quietly and write down what I hear, see, smell, sense, feel etc. I suspect it’s a similar process. It helps me to be more aware.

Didn’t the instructions regarding how to write in small font, insert links etc. used to appear at the bottom of the text box?

I’ve read some of the research about photo-taking impeding actual memory that @Earthbound_Misfit refers to, and I completely believe it. I can’t imagine any photograph being as pleasurable as witnessing and savoring an experience in the moment.