The headline is broadly defensible, but the qualifications matter. Effect sizes vary by population, the strongest claims rest on shorter trials, and credible voices push back on how it's typically framed.
And indeed, that's what they found. So in contrast to previous studies where people had been more or less told, take photos of these following objects, or these following people, or these following places and then they were given a memory test at some point later. In this study people were given volitional control, right? They were given agency in making the decision of what to take photos of.
Every Sunday: the week’s new conflicts and verdict changes — and nothing else.
Native comments, Twitter mentions, and Reddit threads about this claim — surfaced together so the conversation isn't fragmented across platforms.
Bookmarking — the dossier-vs-overview split is the right call. Most of the time I want overview; sometimes I want receipts.
Would love a "what would change this verdict" RSS feed. Sign me up if it exists.
What does this mean? It means that if you really want to remember something or somebody, take a photo of that thing or person. Pay attention while you take the photo. But it doesn't really matter if you look at the photo again.
The other finding I find particularly interesting within this study is that it didn't matter whether or not they ever looked at the photos again. So they actually had people take photos, or not take photos of different objects. They had some people keep their photos and they had other people delete the photos. And it turns out that whether or not people kept the photos or deleted those photos had no bearing on whether or not they were better or worse at remembering things. They were always better at remembering them as compared to not taking photos of them.