The issue of phones at gigs has been on lips for a couple weeks now after tech giant Apple secured a patent for a technology that could put an end to the seas of phones we often see at concerts nowadays.
It’s not the first technology of its kind. Though slightly less elegant than Apple’s idea of using infrared to shut off a phone’s photo capabilities, Yondr uses specialised sealable pouches to hold punters’ phones.
It’s already been used by the likes of Alicia Keys, Louis CK, and Aziz Ansari. However, other musicians think of it as free marketing and even encourage the use of phones and cameras at their shows.
Regardless of where you as a fan or musician stand on the issue, one thing is for certain: taking photos at live gigs is messing with your actual memories of the performances. No, really.
As Pitchfork reports, Linda Henkel, a professor of cognitive psychology at Fairfield University, has conducted a study which suggests we may not remember any of our favourite gigs because we’re too busy taking photos.
“With the camera, people act as if their photos are their memories and they’re not. A photo is one representation of an experience but it’s not the experience,” she told Pitchfork.
Henkel published her study, which examine how taking photos affects a human being’s ability to remember what they were actually photographing, in 2014 in the journal Psychological Science.
Henkel asked participants to walk around a museum and observe some objects with their eyes and take photos of others with their cameras. Henkel found participants couldn’t remember objects they photographed as well later on.
Henkel termed the phenomenon the “photo-taking impairment effect”. According to Henkel, people don’t bother taking in the detail of objects they’ve photographed since they can observe them later on.
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However, as Pitchfork notes, most of the time we don’t actually bother looking at the photos we took. In a sense, we remember taking the photo more than we remember what we took the photo of.
Meanwhile, a study published recently in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that taking photos during an activity could increase enjoyment if the activity is about observation.
However, if the activity involves engagement, stopping to take photos decreases enjoyment. In other words, if you’re at the show to mosh, stopping to take a photo is a nuisance, but if that’s what you’re there to do, you’re having the time of your life.
