this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2024
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Bit of a chicken or the egg thing. There's evidence to suggest that constantly taking photos actively limits our ability to remember the moment.
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/3/28/17054848/smartphones-photos-memory-research-psychology-attention
Your cousin may be locked into a cycle of behavior where they've not trained the neural pathways for the mindful presentness required to make good memories, and now doesn't know how to, so they're stuck in a loop of continuing to use photos instead.
That's fair to bring up, I do agree and would probably be in a similar boat as her if I didn't write often, that kind of thinking is supposed to be good for memory. But of course whenever I lose a pet, for instance, I always find myself wishing I'd taken more pictures of them.
That specific example really hits for me too, but my cat who passed last year I actually did take a lot of pictures of (because she absolutely captured my heart and I couldn't resist), and something that I realized going through them is that there were only really 7-8 good ones worth keeping after the better part of a decade of companionship. But those were the photos of when she first followed me home, or when she was curled up in her favorite spot which just so happened to be a well decorated corner of my apartment, or when she was happily looking out a window during road trips (she actually liked car rides!)
I like photography as an art form and do occasionally make a real effort at taking a good photo, but that kind of practice takes more effort and mindfulness too. The photos worth keeping were the ones I applied myself for, not the dozens or hundreds of stupid selfies or poorly shot loaf pics, as much as I loved her and her loafing.