C/O Klaudia Piaskowska

An over-reliance on digital photos causes more harm than we may expect

By: Rankini Kulatilake, Contributor

From my first ultrasound to my high school graduation, my mother’s scrapbook has captured all my milestones. If anyone wanted to know my story, a simple look through that scrapbook would reveal everything. Yet, 18 years later, in the age of digital photographs and phones with multiple cameras, my mother still chooses to carry a disposable camera around to capture the excitement of the world around her. 

Though digital photographs are quick and often high quality, it has caused meaningful pictures to have increasingly lost their uniqueness given the number of pictures that can be taken so quickly.  This idea is based on the fact that we depend on digital photographs to remember the experience, notwithstanding the fact that we have an abundant amount of digital photographs, which can get easily lost in the abyss of our “Photos” app.

A study of undergraduate students was performed as a guided tour of a museum, prompting the students to take pictures of some objects and just simply observe others. The results? The students remembered fewer visual details about the photographed art, in comparison to the art they were asked to only observe. 

The study found that this difference is due to our over-reliance on the camera, rather than our memory. Consequently, we lose small details and fail to activate the processes that allow us to remember these important details. In short, digital photographs lose their meaning due to our overdependence on the camera itself, causing us to forget important details that would enhance our memory of our experiences.

Digital photographs are easy to take, quick to save and you can easily take 100 pictures in the span of a mere two minutes. In 2018, an estimated one trillion photos were taken. This gargantuan number of photographs will only grow as time goes on. Even in our own phones, we have a flood of pictures. 

But how many of those do we look back at? How many of those experiences do we remember? My camera roll is around 1,000 pictures; however, most of these would be collecting dust if they could. Very rarely will I look back on these pictures because there are simply too many of them and they all blend in together. Many of them have lost their significance as they’ve blended in with the excessive amount of random screenshots and memes I have stored. 

In other words, though digital photos are efficient, the large quantity of them in our phones makes them easily forgettable and causes them to become virtually meaningless.

However, are physical photographs any better? With digital photographs, you can easily share them with your family members and friends who live far away. You’ll even have it there forever, no worrying over losing it or damaging the picture. Despite this, digital photos do not equal security. They can be lost just as easily as physical photographs, albeit in a different manner. 

According to technology developer Vincent Cerf, our most fond and precious memories that are stored digitally risk being lost due to the rapidly evolving changes in digital technologies. 

If we look to compact discs as an example, many used this as a storage unit for a variety of different media types. For a while, you could insert a CD on your laptop as they came with CD players built-in. However, most new laptops do not come with a CD player built-in. Similarly, with the USB, those important files are always easily corrupted and vulnerable to being lost. 

This issue is not seen with physical prints, as photo printers have evolved from being at your local supermarket to mobile printers that you can carry in your bag and connect to a device. All in all, even though physical photographs cannot be as easily shared across vast distances as digital photographs, they can be securely stored and have withstood the rapid advancements of digital media technologies well.

Thus, the rise of digital photographs has caused photos to lose their meaning and significance. This is due to the fact that we remember less of our experiences when we rely on digital photos, as well as the fact that our digital photos are overflowing in our camera rolls. As well, digital photos are constantly vulnerable to the ever-changing media technologies. 

That being said, we can easily capture every moment now, but does it really equate to a memorable and meaningful experience if you are merely viewing it through a phone screen? A picture may be worth a thousand words, but, oftentimes, a thousand words are just not needed. 

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By: Sabrina Bene

Laptops have become the norm in lecture halls as more students bring them to take notes in class. Some professors believe that they have become a distraction rather than a tool to help students learn. I believe that despite this, electronics supply students with unlimited possibilities to enhance their learning experience in lecture. With technology constantly advancing, students are able to increase the amount of information obtained, and apply it in various ways.

The restriction of electronics would have more negative effects than positive. A laptop allows students to follow along with what the professor is saying, while allowing them to quickly jot down important information. Allowing laptops in lectures allows the student to clarify information that may have been confusing. Students are able to follow along with visual data provided by the professor, and are given a chance to interact with the material. For example, the program “TopHat,” which has been introduced in select classes on campus, requires students to bring their laptops to lecture.

If a student does not own a laptop for financial reasons the program provides them with one to follow along. Programs such as TopHat create a positive learning environment for all students and enhance the students’ abilities to clearly understand what is being taught. Electronics also supply students with quick access to the internet where a student can follow along with a PowerPoint on their own monitor, while also searching anything they may need clarification on. A student can quickly google words or phrases they may not understand if they feel uncomfortable asking in lecture.

Despite these advantages, laptops can also cause distractions. While in lecture many students have a bad habit of checking Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, disregarding how distracting this can be for others. This is also detrimental for the person using social media, as it is nearly impossible to browse Facebook while focusing on lecture as well. To reduce the negative impact of laptops rules can be put in place to minimize distractions. For example, students who want to bring laptops can sit at the back of the lecture hall to avoid disturbing others. Additionally, laptops can be banned from tutorials so that more students are able to fully pay attention to what is being discussed. Professors can also try to supply programs like ‘TopHat” where the lecture becomes more interactive, encouraging the student to pay attention rather than browse social media.

It is also important that we accommodate electronics in lecture as they can make material more accessible for students with disabilities.

For example, Pear Note on MacBooks and One Note on PCs allows students with processing disabilities to synchronize information by recording lectures while taking notes. The student can then go through their notes, highlight a concept they didn’t understand in the lecture, and the software repeats the material from that point in time. This helps to increase comprehension and the quality of notes. If laptops were to be banned entirely with the exception of students with disabilities, then they could be uncomfortably singled out.

The use of electronics in the classroom can have both negative and positive effects. To eliminate the negatives professors should consider if the course requires electronics or if the material is largely verbal or written. Professors should also consider how their decisions affect students with disabilities and decide on the most appropriate way to accommodate them, creating a positive environment for all students. Through my own experience I find that the use of electronics can be extremely helpful, as it provides access to all lecture material that you can follow while listening to the lecturer. While I do believe that laptops are a distraction, I do not believe they should be banned because the positives outweigh the negatives.

Photo Credit: Brett Jordan

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