Scientific research
begins to provide
credible evidence

Smartphone cameras are so ubiquitous they come between us and the experience we are trying to capture.
PRESIDENT OBAMA caused a minor kerfuffle when he was photographed taking a selfie with British Prime Minister David Cameron and Denmark’s Prime Minister Helle Thorning Schmidt at the memorial for Nelson Mandela.
The politics notwithstanding, this raises anew a question that has been explored anecdotally for quite some time: does ubiquitous snapping of smartphone pictures diminish our experience of the events themselves?
Almost everyone carries a camera these days, and there seems no limit on how many snapshots we are willing to take.
But a newly published scientific study concludes that, indeed, the act of taking a picture – supposedly to keep the memory of the moment – actually interferes with that very memory. It is weakened.
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