We've all done it at one time or another: took out our mobile phones to take a picture of a sunset that is too beautiful to forget, or photographed a particularly impressive dish at a restaurant.

   It's obvious that we record our lives to keep our memories from fading, but with such widespread use of camera phones and new devices like the Narrative Clip that automatically takes a picture every 30 seconds—how much is too much? Are we taking too many pictures?

   If you look at recent research by Linda Henkel, a psychology professor at Fairfield University, you might think the answer is yes. Her research has suggested that taking photos can actually damage your ability to recall details of the event later. In her study from 2014, students were led on a museum tour and asked to take photos of certain works of art—and only observe others. When they were tested the next day, they were less able to remember details of objects that they had photographed. This is what Henkel calls a "photo-taking impairment effect".

   "What I think is going on is that we treat the camera as a sort of external (外部的) memory device," Henkel says. "We have this expectation that the camera is going to remember things for us, so we don't have to continue processing that object and we don't involve in the types of things that would help us remember it."