We should indeed be grateful that we possess the technology to capture the memorable and precious moments in our lives.
In relation to your point, I very much agree that we should balance our urge to simply take photos using our phones, with actually slowing down, appreciating and cherishing those particular moments. I feel it's more important to truly experience those moments.
Yeah, I feel it's the collective experience of enjoying and being in awe of something.....it makes us feel more relatable to one another.
In this day and age of social media, I think many of us feel such strong, irrational urges to just record and take pictures of such moments and events using our phones......without really being in as well as enjoying the moment.
Our memories are certainly being affected by this digital age. There was a time when we memorised phone numbers, bank accounts and the like. Now they are all built into systems and apps.
We all need to be aware of this slide into mental disrepair.
Your article has me thinking Martin! While I take many photos I prefer to live in the experience so will often intentionally not photograph them and I am terrible (vast understatement) at editing and organizing them. My husband and I just realized we need a digital photo frame so at least our images can be seen, so that will be a start.
For all of my adult life, I have stored my memories in my journal and I just recently got rid of all of those journals!! I wrote an article about it because it was a very big, intentional turning point for me. A fresh start, so to speak, although nothing else in my life had changed. Now here I am in my mid 50's figuring out how I am going to record and store my memories so your piece was perfectly timed.
Also, I really love your suggestions of what to consume this week, both the actual links and the title. It makes us more aware that we are in control of what we allow to pass into our mind. Thank you.
Journaling is a great way to process your thoughts and feelings. I’ve found it can help me organise my thoughts.
I’m glad you found my thoughts on photos useful. I really like the idea of reviewing and deleting photos. We simply don’t need them all. And probably when we took them we didn’t expect them all to be great so we owe it to ourselves to edit.
Go to a concert, or a school play or a place of interest and everyone is viewing it through their phones. They’re trying to take pictures so they can relive it later or probably just post about it on instagram.
But by taking a smaller number of photos and then putting the phone away you can really live the experience.
We take photos to remember. Look at them later. Share the stories. Remember the smells and feelings. Those things make the memories stay strong. Life is for making memories. We now have the benefit of digital storage.
We should indeed be grateful that we possess the technology to capture the memorable and precious moments in our lives.
In relation to your point, I very much agree that we should balance our urge to simply take photos using our phones, with actually slowing down, appreciating and cherishing those particular moments. I feel it's more important to truly experience those moments.
There was a guy watching fireworks at our local school recently. Videoed the whole thing.
I stood there pretty confused to be honest.
Firstly the video will be complete rubbish but that’s not the point.
He could watch fireworks 100 times better on YouTube when he gets home anyway.
What he can’t experience is the immersive experience of watching those fireworks in real time with a crowd of people.
There’s something special about watching something in a crowd.
Yeah, I feel it's the collective experience of enjoying and being in awe of something.....it makes us feel more relatable to one another.
In this day and age of social media, I think many of us feel such strong, irrational urges to just record and take pictures of such moments and events using our phones......without really being in as well as enjoying the moment.
I just saw this post on medium and I think you may find it interesting. It explores the question, what happens to core memories and digital creations when a social media company winds down. What can creators do to preserve their content etc. https://joanwestenberg.medium.com/how-social-medias-fading-archives-are-erasing-our-digital-history-cc90c1c4f4ec
Hi Ove - this is great thanks!
Our memories are certainly being affected by this digital age. There was a time when we memorised phone numbers, bank accounts and the like. Now they are all built into systems and apps.
We all need to be aware of this slide into mental disrepair.
It certainly feels like life is moving faster.
My daughter was tiny when COVID hit. Now she’s one year away from secondary school.
I agree. People who relied on oral information developed a much better memory. Nowadays we have it all in a device and panic if we can't access it.
Your article has me thinking Martin! While I take many photos I prefer to live in the experience so will often intentionally not photograph them and I am terrible (vast understatement) at editing and organizing them. My husband and I just realized we need a digital photo frame so at least our images can be seen, so that will be a start.
For all of my adult life, I have stored my memories in my journal and I just recently got rid of all of those journals!! I wrote an article about it because it was a very big, intentional turning point for me. A fresh start, so to speak, although nothing else in my life had changed. Now here I am in my mid 50's figuring out how I am going to record and store my memories so your piece was perfectly timed.
Also, I really love your suggestions of what to consume this week, both the actual links and the title. It makes us more aware that we are in control of what we allow to pass into our mind. Thank you.
Thanks for reading Donna.
Journaling is a great way to process your thoughts and feelings. I’ve found it can help me organise my thoughts.
I’m glad you found my thoughts on photos useful. I really like the idea of reviewing and deleting photos. We simply don’t need them all. And probably when we took them we didn’t expect them all to be great so we owe it to ourselves to edit.
Effective framework. Memory through the senses is just as or even more important. ❤️
I think you’re right.
Go to a concert, or a school play or a place of interest and everyone is viewing it through their phones. They’re trying to take pictures so they can relive it later or probably just post about it on instagram.
But by taking a smaller number of photos and then putting the phone away you can really live the experience.
And your memory will thank you for it.
Great advice - adding captions to photos immediately helps recall. Sadly, our memory is a fickle thing.
We take photos to remember. Look at them later. Share the stories. Remember the smells and feelings. Those things make the memories stay strong. Life is for making memories. We now have the benefit of digital storage.