Just enjoy them says new study
New US research has found that taking photos of life's enjoyable moments could actually lead to you enjoying them less.
Led by Gia Nardini at the University of Denver along with researchers at Washington University in St Louis and the University of Florida, Nardini was prompted to carry out the new research when she herself came back from a trip to a wildlife preserve thinking she had spent more time taking photos than actually living in the moment.
To investigate the idea further, the authors carried out a series of five different tests including a total of 718 participants. Some were surveyed on whether photographing highly enjoyable experiences increases, decreases or has no effect on enjoyment while others were asked to take part in experiences and say whether they enjoyed it when taking photos and when putting the camera down.
The findings, published in the journal Psychology and Marketing, showed that if the event is a highly enjoyable one, then stopping to take photos will distract from this enjoyment.
In particular, the participants who watched a highly enjoyable video without snapping photos enjoyed the experience significantly more, at 72.6 on a 100-point scale, than those occasionally taking pictures, at 63.8 on the 100-point scale.
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