Without Memory

I am one of those people who loves looking at old photographs. Give me a family photo album any day and I’ll be entertained looking through your best nostalgic moments because there’s always a story to tell in each photograph. With everything uploading into a digital, cloud space, I hardly see anyone compiling photo albums. In the last four years, I only know of one friend who has made a book of her family’s photos. Beyond that, I’m assuming people only have albums made of their wedding day (which makes sense when you’re shelling out $$$ for a photographer)? 

Growing up, it was typical for my parents to have their film camera out for every celebration and vacation. When the roll was full, my Dad would drop it off at the 1-hour film development booth inside the grocery store. Even though there were some bad photos, we enjoyed looking through all of them.

Nowadays, with selfies and very important photos taken of what you ate during last Sunday brunch, we are inundated with photographs. So much so that my boyfriend rolls his eyes whenever I want to take a picture of us. “How often do you actually look at the photos on your phone from that concert ten years ago?” And he has a point…for most people. Like I said, I enjoy looking at photographs. But I concede that I am more likely to look at a hand-printed book than I am to go through my library on my phone or computer. As such, I’ve had several prints done as gifts for family and four books printed of photos that have been sitting on my phone for the last ten years. For anyone in the Colorado area, I highly recommend using a local Denver company called Artifact Uprising. Their products are great and the website is easy to use. Their customer service has been excellent, with the minor issues I’ve had. Of course you don’t have to be from Colorado to use their services!

I love bringing my books out to share with friends when they come visit and so I DO end up looking at those photos from the concert ten years ago :p 

But what do I really remember of that concert aside from the fact that I took a photograph there to prove I attended? Do I remember the set list? The lights? The smells? This brings me to the question I’ve been asking myself recently: does the act of taking photos affect my memory?

There’s little doubt that taking photographs affects human memory for better or worse. There are articles on this topic for every year from back in 2013 until 2019. Back in 2014, NPR interviewed psychologist Linda Henkel commentates on that exact sentiment through a study she did with her students. She found that snapping photos impaired people’s memories unless the photos were taken with intention. We make memories by paying attention as said in Psychology Today’s article: How Memory Works. Finally I read this article from the Association of Psychological Science tells us that taking photographs actually boosts visual memory, but impairs auditory memory.

In general, human memory is incredibly unreliable and constantly changes as time passes. With the ever evolving digital age, will we decide to someday just recede from the planet into a virtual world of AI consciousness? Is having a device that stores all those memories better than using our own brain? I’m not sure about the first question, but to the second I say no, because to me part of being human is reminiscing on good times and cringing at those embarrassing ones. It hurts when we begin to lose our memories which is why Alzheimer’s is such a tragic disease. So for me, having that printed photo album and occasionally sharing it with friends and family helps me remember special events. It helps me remember a good story from the concert.

Of course people don’t remember every detail of their lives, but I would love to compare my memory (or any millennial’s memories) to that of a Gen X or Baby Boomer. Those generations did not grow up with a digital device within reach at all times. Does that mean they have a better memory? I have listened to my boyfriend (a Gen Xer) spout off his childhood shenanigans, distant conversations, and also remember people’s names and faces that he hasn’t see in decades which leads me to think, yes.

In the end, my opinion is that a happy life is all about balance. I will continue to capture memorable photographs, but I will also be putting down the phone or camera equally as often, if not more so, to enjoy the moment.