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Taking Photos Has A Surprising Psychological Benefit, Large Study Finds

How taking photos affects the enjoyment of everyday experiences.

It turns out that photography has an unsuspected psychological benefit.

Taking photos can enhance the enjoyment of everyday activities, a study finds.

Far from being distracted in the moment, people who take photos seem to get more out of their experience — in most circumstances.

The study’s authors write:

“To the best of our knowledge, this research is the first extensive investigation examining how taking photos affects people’s enjoyment of their experiences.

We show that, relative to not taking photos, photography can heighten enjoyment of positive experiences by increasing engagement.”

The researchers conducted nine experiments including over 2,000 people for their paper.

Some were in the lab, while others were out ‘in the field’.

In one, for example, people were taken on a bus tour.

Half were advised to take photos and the other half not.

Those that took photos generally found the experience more enjoyable.

The reason that taking photos works is that it helps engage people in the experience, the authors write:

“…capturing experiences with photos actually focuses attention onto the experience, particularly on aspects of the experience worth capturing.

As a result, photo-taking leads people to become more engaged with the experience.”

Perhaps the benefits are also related to ‘mindful photography‘:

“…happiness is boosted by being grateful for what you have.

Unfortunately we often ignore what we have in the rush through everyday life.

One way of combating this is to take photographs of whatever is important to you as a reminder.”

Even just taking ‘mental pictures’ during the experience was enough to help people enjoy it more.

However, the researchers did find that when people were already engaged an experience, taking photos didn’t help.

Also, handling large photographic equipment seemed to stop people enjoy the experience.

Trillions of photos

Given how many photos are taken every day, it seems people are enjoying themselves a lot more.

The authors write:

“…the New York Times estimates that in 2010, people took 0.3 trillion photos worldwide, and this number will reach 1.3 trillion by 2017.

In addition, the number of photos being uploaded on different social media sites every day can provide a lower-bound estimate of the number of photos taken.

For example, Facebook reports that their worldwide users upload two billion pictures daily, and Instagram users upload 80 million photos per day.”

The study was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (Diehl et al., 2016).

How Depression Is Linked To Social Media Use

Social media use does not predict later depression, research finds.

Using social media does not predict the onset of depression, research finds.

The conclusion contradicts previous studies claiming that social media use causes depression.

The study, unlike previous investigations, followed people for up to six years to see which came first, social media use or depression.

The results showed that heavier social media users did not become more depressed later on.

However, one group of young people (adolescent girls) who were already depressed did end up using social media more.

This suggests social media use does not cause depression, but could be a way of dealing with it (whether successful or not).

Ms Taylor Heffer, the study’s first author, said:

“This finding contrasts with the idea that people who use a lot of social media become more depressed over time.

Instead, adolescent girls who are feeling down may turn to social media to try and make themselves feel better.”

The study followed 594 Canadian children from the 6th, 7th and 8th grades for two years, as well as 1,132 undergraduate students for six years.

Ms Heffer explained the reasoning behind this strategy:

“You have to follow the same people over time in order to draw the conclusion that social media use predicts greater depressive symptoms.

By using two large longitudinal samples, we were able to empirically test that assumption.”

The results showed that social media use did not predict later depression.

However, specifically among adolescent girls, being depressed predicted increasing use of social media.

Ms Heffer said:

“There may be different groups of people who use social media for different reasons.

For example, there may be a group of people who use social media to make social comparisons or turn to it when they are feeling down, while another group of people may use it for more positive reasons, such as keeping in contact with friends.”

The study was published in the journal Clinical Psychological Science (Heffer et al., 2019).