Taking Photos Makes Your Favorite Activities Less Enjoyable, Per Professor’s Research

The pictures show that Gia Nardini was there, in Florida, enjoying a visit to an exotic animal rescue facility. She can look back at dozens of snapshots of adorable ex-pets for proof.

But when she hopped in the car to head home, her memories were already fuzzy and her feelings anything but warm.

“I left feeling like I was there, but I was really not there,” says Nardini, an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business. “My presence was there, but the rest of me was gone.”

She called her advisor at the University of Florida, where she was earning a PhD in marketing. “People get so caught up in taking pictures,” she told him, “and all of a sudden you’re not focused on what’s actually happening, you’re focused on some future experience of having these pictures.”

Her time at the animal facility sparked what would become Nardini’s research, recently published in Psychology & Marketing, which shows she’s far from the only one feeling detached and unsatisfied these days. Her latest article examines how and when taking pictures undermines personal enjoyment.

“With the advent of smartphones and digital cameras,” Nardini and her team write, “photo taking has become much more convenient such that it is now common practice to take pictures at virtually any occasion — important or not. Pictures may even be changing the occasions themselves: For some people, vacations are transforming from an occasion to get away and relax to an opportunity to capture the best-looking moments on camera.” 

Previous studies have shown that while most people don’t think their cameras and phones will have a negative impact, many of them relay feelings of isolation at a child’s birthday, school play or concert because of an inability to separate from the screen.

But the issue of the photo-taking phenomenon isn’t necessarily black and white. Nardini’s team discovered that the type of experience a person photographs has a lot to do with the camera’s effect.

For example, taking photos during “moderately enjoyable” activities can actually enhance a person’s experience, Nardini found, especially if the photographer is bored or doesn’t want to be there. “But if you look at something that they are seeking out because they really enjoy it,” she counters, like a favorite band’s concert, for example, “that’s where you see the detriment sink in.”

What doesn’t seem to matter is the number of photos someone takes — it could be five or 500 — or what the person intends to do with the photos — to view on their own or share on social media.