Digital Cameras Are Messing With Your Memory

I think "can we", rather than "will we", is the question for current research. "Will we go back" is really asking whether or not we will find ourselves in social situations where we aren't using cameras and recorded imagery to supplement or stand in place of our perception and memory - certainly all of us will find ourselves in low-tech situations, some more often than others. "Can we go back" is the question of how the technology is altering our capacities, so that when we *do* find ourselves in low-tech situations, we are effectively maladapted. So, to my mind (having studied visual adaptation in several contexts), the research question is really about adaptation - how do memory functions adapt to lower demand availed by technology, and how does this adaptation interact with low-tech situations?

either way though you're still reconstructing the memory for yourself and interpreting the events. The research of Elizabeth Loftus shows how reliable (or unreliable) memory actually is. Until technology recahes the point where it can actually capture and store actual neural thoughts and memories, it will still be just an aid to recollection at best. But when recording an event becomes the primary experience of the user, rather than a corollary, then technology itself has altered the formation of the memory. An interesting question nonetheless!

My hope would be that, rather than going back, we go forward; that we use automated, objective, external storage to counteract the natural degradation of memory. When you have a record not influenced or obfuscated by your emotion, logical fallacies, or cognitive errors, the door to objective reflection and evaluation swings a little further open.

Cheap and voluminous capture abilities have no doubt changed how we experience events. But I think we're in a temporary phase of history here. Cameras requiring manual control (and thus our attention) will be replaced by devices that can function automatically, putting us back close in touch with direct experience. But will we go back to using memory the same way we did before everyone had digital cameras?