Because people take a lot of pictures. According to the Times, roughly 1.3 trillion photos were taken in 2017, the vast majority of them with our smartphones. 350 million of these pictures are uploaded to Facebook every day. Since Instagram launched in 2010, over 40 billion photos have been shared on the site.

 

 

A recent paper in JPSP by the psychologists Kristin Diehl, Gal Zuberman and Alixandra Barasch provides some useful answers. The scientists began by taking over a Philadelphia tour bus company for the day. Half of the tourists were assigned to the photo condition: they were given a digital camera and told to take at least ten pictures of their experience. The other half were told to “experience the tour as you normally would.” Both groups were asked to leave their belongings, including smartphones, with a research assistant.

After the bus tour was over, the tourists were given a short survey. Here’s the key takeaway: those people who took lots of pictures enjoyed themselves significantly more. The camera didn’t get in the way—it improved the experience.

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