Realization
The article titled How Instagram Alters Your Memory from CityLab struck my interest during this week’s readings. Prior to reading this post, I had my own personal realization related to this study about two years ago. I had noticed over the course of many events that when I focused on using my phone to take pictures or videos instead of just using my memory to document it, I had a harder time remembering the event. Most of what I could remember was looking at my phone screen and trying to get the perfect photo or video. Everything else seemed like a blur. Sometimes I would post the photos or videos to social media and other times I would not, but it didn’t matter because by doing this I had already done the damage of altering my memory.
When I think back on these events, I don’t remember much that’s not in the photo or video. That if I decide to look back on them at all. I have been to multiple concerts where I haven’t looked back at the pictures and videos I took and they just sit in my camera roll until I eventually delete them or upload them to my computer. And I still never look at them. However, even though I never looked at the videos doesn’t mean I don’t remember taking them, but that’s about the only thing I remember.
When I realized this around two years ago, I challenged myself to take less pictures and just soak in moments for how they really were. I wanted to see if by doing so I could change my ability to recall details of events. The past two concerts I have been to I have taken one or zero videos during the performance. I tried my hardest to focus on being in the moment. Sure enough, these last two events I can recall much more details than other concerts where I was on my phone recording songs the whole time. Since this realization, I only pull out my phone to record the best song of the night and then I put it away until the end of the show.
Connections
I thought my experience connected with the article and how the students could recall taking photos of art pieces but they could not remember the details of the art in the picture even though they saw it in person. The article also talks about how focusing in on details of a picture will help you remember the overall picture better which I relate to. I have edited pictures and zoomed in on them, and those pictures are the ones that I can see very clearly in my own mind if I think hard enough. Other pictures that I have not edited so closely have a tendency to get lost with all the other junk in my memory.
Over the course of 2019, I took a lot of pictures, but I’d say a significantly less amount than I had in previous years. I also posted a lot less on Instagram too. 2019 was the hardest year of my life but also the happiest, so it wasn’t like I didn’t have anything good to post. I just chose not to. There were multiple days throughout the year that I was having such a great time that I would totally forget to take a picture or document the day. My boyfriend and I actually had to start reminding each other to take pictures together because we didn’t have pictures of some of our milestones and best moments together.
Over the course of this whole experiment with myself the biggest observation that I made was that living life and taking pictures along the way is much different than taking pictures for the purpose of showing off your life. I was recently putting together a gift with printed pictures and I was looking back on some moments that I had forgotten about, but my memory was quickly jogged of the details because I had just snapped a picture in the moment instead of being strategic with the posing. The pictures weren’t for anyone but myself at the time of taking them, and that improved my ability to jump back into the moment that they were taken. Other pictures I looked at that had been strategically taken were harder to remember.
I have tried my hardest to live my life with my head not glued to my phone. It has become increasingly harder as time goes on because this behavior has become so normalized, but I do think that sticking up for yourself in this way will benefit in the long run if you care about remembering the details of things. If you don’t, well then I guess just keep living your life through a lense.
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