Remember that screenshot you took to keep track of vital information while filling out a form, or to save a recipe for later? You don’t? That’s probably because, according to research published in Memory & Cognition by researchers from Binghamton University’s psychology department, screenshotting might be making you more forgetful.
The study, led by psychology doctoral candidate Sophia Fabrizio and co-authored by Rebecca Lurie and Deanne Westerman, put 892 participants through seven experiments. The idea was to look at artwork, screenshot it, and try to remember what you saw. The people who hit the screenshot button consistently remembered less than those who only looked at it.
Researchers tested several possible explanations. Maybe screenshotting divides attention? Maybe the brain figures that the phone’s got this, since it has effectively offloaded its memory process onto an external device, so it stops trying. Or maybe pressing the button not only initiates an action on the phone but also acts as a switch that turns off your connection to the experience?
Taking Screenshots Could Be Making You More Forgetful, Study Finds
Whatever it is, researchers found little evidence that screenshotting freed up any mental resources for other tasks or improved memory for anything the participants did afterward.
Screenshots, according to the research, seem to work better as a supplemental piece rather than a load-bearing reminder. Getting into the habit of reviewing your pictures and screenshots can potentially turn them and the act itself into a helpful memory jog. Otherwise, screenshots, like most photos, just become another thing on your phone that can be easily forgotten.
Because that right there is the whole problem: phones quickly turn into digital junk drawers stuffed with thousands of pictures that you will stop and appreciate someday. That someday rarely, if ever, arrives. If you’re screenshotting something to remember it for later, it’s probably better just to remember it for later.
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