Exploring functions of and recollections with photos in the age of smartphone cameras

Abstract

People often report taking photos to aid memory. Two mixed-method surveys were used to investigate participants’ reasons for taking photos, focusing specifically on memory-related reasons, which were split into two sub-types: photos taken as mementos, and photos taken as a means of offloading information. Participants reported their motivations for taking a sample of photos and then rated their recollective experience of each photographed event. Across both studies, participants reported recollecting events associated with a memento goal more vividly, more positively, and with more emotional intensity than events associated with an offloading goal. As expected, events photographed with a memento goal were also rated by participants to be more reflective of a shared memory system between the participants and the camera than were events photographed with an offloading goal. These findings suggest that people’s motivations when taking photos tend to be associated with different types of recollective experiences, as well as different judgments about where personal information is located in a blended human-camera memory system.