With parents flooding their camera phones with hundreds of photos -- from loose teeth to each step in the potty training  process -- how might the photos affect our memories? Maryanne Garry, a psychology professor, has studied the effects of photography on our memories for years. "I think the problem is that people are giving away being in the moment. Those parents at the park taking all those photos are actually paying less attention to the moment, because they're focusing on the act of taking the photo." she says. Henkel, who researches human memory at Fairfield University in Connecticut, began an experiment by sending groups of students to the university's art museum. The students observed some objects and photographed others. Then, back at the lab, they were given a memory test. Henkel found what she called a "photo-taking impairment   effect." "The objects that they had taken photos of -- they actually remembered fewer of them, and remembered fewer details. Like, how was this statue's hands positioned, or what was this statue wearing on its head." she says. Her students' memories were impaired because relying on an external   memory aid meant they subconsciously   counted on the camera to remember the details. "As soon as you hit 'click' on that camera, it's as if you've outsourced your memory," she says. "Any time we count on these external memory devices, we're taking away the kind of mental cognitive   processing that might help us actually remember that stuff on our own." Henkel says it's also a mistake to think of photographs as memories. The photo will remain the same to you each time you look at it, but memories change over time. "Each time I remember what my high school graduation was like, I might be color1ing and changing that memory because of my current perspective -- because of new ideas that I have or things that I learned afterwards," she says. "Human memory is much more dynamic   than photographs." But Henkel doesn't want people to stop taking photos. Instead, she'd like us to be more mindful when taking pictures in the first place. They're still valuable tools that can provide "rich retrieval   clues" later on. What is the attitude of Henkel towards taking photos?
Objective. Negative. Unconcerned. Doubtful.