Some years back, my then toddler and I visited a friend’s house. Her children were excited to show off their recent accomplishments. My friend asked the eldest among them, then a third grader, to demonstrate her extreme flexibility. She immediately assumed an improbable position you’d expect of a contortionist and exclaimed, “quick Mom, take a picture so you can post it on Facebook!”

A couple of years later, I was playing some retro electronic music at home one cold, Saturday afternoon when my son broke into a very funny and well-executed robot dance. In response to my laughter and praise, he advised me to take a video and post it on Youtube. When asked why, he replied helpfully with something along the lines of “because you liked it!” 

Already attuned to some of the downsides of online engagement and social media use, especially as relates to children (e.g. violating children’s right to privacy, “sharenting,” increased depression and cyberbullying, and parents exploiting their children’s images for financial gain), I was particularly troubled by this aspect (online sharing) of our children’s requests. There is another more fundamental matter of concern, however—that of taking the photo or video in the first place. In the digital age, where it is so easy for so many to make and produce digital media, we tend to create a lot of it. Researchers are naturally worried about the ways in which parents’ photo habits affect children’s self-conception. I share that worry, but I think there is a bigger issue still, an issue which is compounded by, but prior to, the simultaneous increased ease of sharing our digital media online.

Why are we taking so many digital reels of our lives and what are the effects of so doing, especially, though not only, on our children’s conception of value and meaning? These are the questions I’m concerned with in this piece. I’ll suggest that our digital media activities undermine the very things that drive us to engage in them in the first place.

When I was little, people had to go to the trouble and expense of buying film rolls and developing them. As a result, except for professionals, the average person tended to take photos only at really important events. In my social circle, we associated photo-taking with something of significant sentimental or achievement-related importance. Having a photo of something meant that whatever it captured was a pretty big deal and worthy of memorializing.

Has the increased ease of photography led to a degradation of the importance of the photos we take or are we commemorating and memorializing (aspects of) our lives a whole lot more often? If the former (photos are less important) is true, then why are we taking so many? We have good reasons, from economic and psychological theory (according to which increased supply leads to decreased value, increased exposure to a reward leads to reduced satiation and reduced subjective value and to desensitization, etc.), to think that the value of photography has diminished and to doubt that we are genuinely attempting to commemorate so much of our lives. Some of our media activity may be purely habitual or a matter of social conformity or imitation. And yet, it also seems to be the case that photography still matters to us, on a personal level, a lot.

Here’s one way of accommodating both—that photography has both diminished in value and yet remains deeply important. The act of photographing reflects, produces, and (potentially) confers value. In photographing something, we reveal that the object of our photograph already possesses its own value (for at least someone). The material result—the photograph—has value, whether sentimental, social, artistic, cultural, financial, etc. As a result, in taking photos, we might think that we also confer value to the things we photograph.

At some point in the process, it is probably impossible to say whether we’re photographing something (1) because the subject of that photo is important to us and we want to capture this importance, (2) because we want to make something of importance (the photo itself), or (3) because we want to make the subject of the photo more important. So, are we taking photos of things (people, animals, experiences, scenery, etc.) we value, are we taking them to create something of (greater) value, or are we thereby trying to make these things more valuable? How does this affect our experiences, our human subjects, and our concepts of value and meaning?

Let’s consider the first. Is it really possible that we genuinely value, in the same way or to the same extent, all the things we photograph? That we consider them worthy of commemoration or memorialization? What does it mean to memorialize something anyway? To make it permanent, to celebrate it, to bookmark it so we can come back to it later? Accomplishing any of these things is resource intensive. We need the time and space to store, secure, organize, maintain, and retrieve this vast material (even if it remains in a digital format which, incidentally, does not remove environmental costs). And then there are the emotional demands that this process makes on us. Revisiting the past can be joyful but it can also be painful. It can prompt regret, guilt, and various forms of negative nostalgia. In this light, we would be wise to memorialize only a small percentage of our lives—much less than, presumably, we’re currently doing.

There are other issues at stake, however. What makes an experience worth memorializing is the value of the experience itself. In parallel with the observer effect in the quantum domain, according to which the presence of an observer changes the system being observed, when we step into the experience as an observer (qua photographer), we change the thing (or system) we’re photographing. We end up having a wholly different experience as a result and are memorializing something different than we set out to do. What is more, we are experiencing the moment as an observer rather than as a participant. The value of our experience qua participant, which is, presumably, a function of the degree to which we are fully present and engaged, is reduced. Stepping behind the lens separates us from the experience. Moreover, the memory of something in which we were less than fully engaged is less vivid and so harder to recall.

Coming back to possibility (2), if our goal in stepping behind the lens is to make something of value (e.g. art, a story, something for the public record, a memento, a gift, a status signifier, a salable product, an advertisement), we’re acting in line with our goal. Nonetheless, in this scenario, our photographic subjects are, at least partly, instruments of our goals. When these subjects are our own friends or family members, especially children, we should be aware that we are possibly signaling their (partly) instrumental status to them. If, on the other hand, our goal is to capture something of deep value (something worth memorializing), we are undermining it for the reasons just discussed.

As to possibility (3), if we are attempting to confer value to the things we photograph (as distinct from trying to memorialize them or to create something valuable out of them), we reveal that we find these things to be lacking in some kind or degree of value and desire to increase it. I worry about the effects of communicating that belief. Perhaps my son made his Youtube-recording request because he thought that the value of his dance performance would be enhanced by fulfilling it, suggesting that he found it wanting (or thought I did) in some respect. He might instead have believed that because I valued it, I should record and share it. If I had, though, I would have had a less valuable experience of it (having separated myself, with the lens, from it). But can I make the experience more valuable by recording it?

One can, to repeat the earlier point, make something of value from the experience—with the digital capturing of it. The dance performance (and the dancer) can thus have instrumental value—a value which can only be realized by making and sharing a recording of it and which can be known only after so doing. But that a recording can increase its non-instrumental value seems unlikely. I assume that the best artistic performance happens when the performer is wholly absorbed in and by the art itself (that, you might say, is what makes them an artist). 

Still, an audience certainly plays some role in the overall production and is sometimes even part of the art itself. In general, thought, this role should be secondary. Audience effects are well documented, but they can swing two ways. An audience can motivate or inhibit a performer and can promote extrinsic motivation (a reason beyond one’s passion for the art to perform). Intrinsically motivated performances presumably have the greatest inherent value.

I’ll close this piece with another personal anecdote. Not long ago, my family and I had the magical experience of watching the northern lights. We couldn’t get our phone cameras night settings to work, so had no choice but to sit back and watch with our naked eyes. While we don’t have “anything to show for it” and perhaps because we don’t (and knew we wouldn’t), it’s among our most cherished and vivid memories. Nevertheless, it remains, if I’m honest, a bit scary to venture out without my camera. I worry that I’ll fail to record something of value. But now I see a bit more clearly that in stepping out from behind the lens, I stand to gain something I value even more.

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