Shelly Palmer Radio Report – December 16, 2013

A new study has determined that technology, like digital cameras, is making us more forgetful. Linda Henkel, a psychologist at Fairfield University recently found that people who think a computer will save their information – like pictures – will recall much less of it than people who thought the machine would delete it. Henkel said that the more easily we can take and access pictures, the less likely we are to remember the moment. Not all is lost when it comes to our phones, though. Henkel believes that tapping your screen to take a picture will help you remember it, because the tactile effect of taking the picture heightens your sense of ownership to the picture. Our phones have allowed us to outsource our knowledge and have given us easy access to answers to every question we could ever ask, but they’re also making memorable experiences more fleeting. So the next time you’re at a breathtaking scenic location, you might want to think twice before taking out your phone to capture the moment.