A new study has revealed that taking a picture or taking a screenshot to remember information may lead to poor memory and increased forgetfulness, a phenomenon known as "digital forgetfulness".
The study, conducted by a team from Binghamton University in the United States and published in the journal Memory & Cognition, explained that this phenomenon occurs when a person does not review the material they have photographed afterward.
Although reviewing photos may help boost long-term memory, the reality is that most of us take more photos than we can review, averaging 20 photos a day and around 2,000 photos stored on a smartphone on average.
Researcher Sofia Fabrizio, a doctoral candidate and lead author of the study, attributed the reason to the brain's reliance on external storage of information, which reduces the effort required to store it in internal memory.
She added: "Unless you regularly review these photos as a way to recall memories, you are unlikely to benefit from them."
The research team conducted 7 experiments that included photographing artworks and a memory test, and none of them showed any benefits to photography; on the contrary, the weakness of memory was evident.
The researchers suggested three possible mechanisms for this weakness: distraction during the taking of the picture, external mental loading (where the brain is lazy about memorizing because it knows that the information is stored externally), and attentional disengagement (where the person mentally moves away from the experience unconsciously).
To preserve memory, the study offers a practical solution: writing by hand. Taking notes forces the brain to process and organize information, making it easier to remember later.
But even this method is not entirely guaranteed, as it may sometimes lead to dependence on external storage, as happens when we forget a friend’s birthday after adding it to the calendar with reminders.
Fabrizio concluded, "Our results suggest that we damage our memory simply by pressing a button, and that this damage may extend far beyond the information we capture."
