CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 13Memory Processes and InfluencesPhotography and Visual CultureIdentity, Memory, and Therapy

The mnemonic consequences associated with sharing personal photographs on social media

Open access
Stone, Charles B., Zwolinski, Ava·2022·Memory, Mind & Media
DOI 10.1017/mem.2022.6
Open this paper in CoChat — free accountOpen PDF

Abstract

Social media provides an easy and ubiquitous means by which individuals can curate and share their personal experiences while also interacting with their friends, family, and the world at large. One means by which individuals can craft their personal past via social media is through their personal photographs. However, psychologists are only beginning to appreciate the mnemonic consequences associated with sharing personal photographs on social media. The aim of this manuscript is to distil the relevant, psychological research examining the mnemonic consequences associated with photography and sharing personal photographs on social media. To this end, we discuss how a psychological approach to memory has evolved from an individualist perspective to one that is beginning to appreciate the importance of a memory ecology. We then turn to photographs as an important component of one's memory ecology and how the act of photography and sharing photos on social media may have important consequences for how individuals remember their personal past. We then end with a discussion surrounding pertinent avenues for future research. We advocate that, moving forward, psychologists should better appreciate (1) the collective nature of social media, (2) an individual's memory ecology, and (3) the mnemonic consequences associated with social media silence. In addressing these issues, we believe that psychologists and memory researchers, more generally, will gain a fuller understanding of how, and in what way, personal photographs, and the act of sharing them via social media may shape the way individuals remember their personal past.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1017/mem.2022.6

Cites

9 of 9 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Social media and the internet allow sharing information about one's life with a broader audience, which sets them apart from some other high-tech resources.

    “Third, social media and the internet allow sharing information about one's life with a broader audience, which sets them apart from some of the other high-tech resources (cf.Stone & Zwolinski, 2022).”

    From Understanding Autobiographical Memory in the Digital Age: The AMEDIA-Model (2024) · cites this paper as Stone & Zwolinski, 2022

  • Individuals are embedded in a memory ecology, in which they are never really separated from their social and inanimate environment.

    “individuals are embedded in a memory ecology (Hoskins, 2016; see also Stone & Zwolinski, 2022), in which they are never really separated from their social and inanimate environment (cf.Hirst & Stone, 2015).”

    From Understanding Autobiographical Memory in the Digital Age: The AMEDIA-Model (2024) · cites this paper as Stone & Zwolinski, 2022

  • Sharing information with others can also be considered a curatorial practice as it involves selecting the information that an individual wants to present and invites others to join the curatorial process by liking or commenting.

    “Second, sharing information with others can also be considered a curatorial practice as it involves selecting the information that an individual wants to present and as it invites others to join the curatorial process by liking the shared content or by commenting on it (cf.Stone & Zwolinski, 2022).”

    From Understanding Autobiographical Memory in the Digital Age: The AMEDIA-Model (2024) · cites this paper as Stone & Zwolinski, 2022

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 56

  1. Barasch A, Diehl K, Silverman J and Zauberman G (2017) Photographic memory: The effects of volitional photo taking on memory for visual and auditory aspects of an experience. Psychological Science 28(8), 1056-1066. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797617694868 · DOI
  2. Barnier AJ and Hoskins A (2018) Is there memory in the head, in the wild? Memory Studies 11(4), 386-390. https://doi.org/10.1177/1750698018806440 · DOI
  3. Bell BT (2019) 'You take fifty photos, delete forty nine and use one': A qualitative study of adolescent image- sharing practices on social media. International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction 20, 64-71. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.ijcci.2019.03.002 · DOI · Paper page
  4. Bietti LM (2011) Joint remembering: Cognition, communication and interaction in processes of memory-making. Memory Studies 5(2), 182-205. https://doi.org/10.1177/1750698011404986 · DOI
  5. Cienki A, Bietti LM and Kok K (2014) Multimodal alignment during collaborative remembering. Memory Studies 7(3), 354-369. https://doi.org/10.1177/1750698014530624 · DOI
  6. Clark A (2001) Natural-born cyborgs? In International Conference on Cognitive Technology. Berlin/Heidelberg, Germany: Springer, 17-24.
  7. Congleton AR and Rajaram S (2011) The influence of learning methods on collaboration: Prior repeated retrieval enhances retrieval organization, abolishes collaborative inhibition, and promotes post-collaborative memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 140(4), 535-551. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0024308 · DOI
  8. Danziger K (2008) Marking the Mind: A History of Memory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  9. Dark VJ and Loftus GR (1976) The role of rehearsal in long-term memory performance. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 15(4), 479-490. https://doi.org/10.1016/50022-5371(76)90043-8 · DOI
  10. Eliseev ED and Marsh EJ (2021) Externalizing autobiographical memories in the digital age. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 25, 1072-1081. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2021.08.005 · DOI · Paper page
  11. Fawns T (2014) Photography and the disruption of memory and meaning. Ubiquity 3(1-2), 3-14. https://doi.org/ 10.1386/ubiq.3.1-2.3_1 · DOI
  12. Fawns T (2020) Blended memory: A framework for understanding distributed autobiographical remembering with photography. Memory Studies 13(6), 901-916. https://doi.org/10.1177/1750698019829891 · DOI
  13. Fenn E, Ramsay N, Kantner J, Pezdek K and Abed E (2019) Nonprobative photos increase truth, like, and share judgments in a simulated social media environment. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition 8(2), 131-138. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jarmac.2019.04.005 · DOI
  14. Gozali JP, Kan M-Y and Sundaram H (2012) How do people organize their photos in each event and how does it affect storytelling, searching, and interpretation tasks?. In JCDL '12: Proceedings of the 12th ACM/IEEE-CS Joint Conference on Digital Libraries, Washington, DC. https://doi.org/10.1145/2232817.2232875 · DOI
  15. Greene RL (1987) Effects of maintenance rehearsal on human memory. Psychological Bulletin 102(3), 403-413. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.102.3.403 · DOI
  16. Gutchess AH and Indeck A (2009) Cultural influences on memory. Progress in Brain Research 178, 137-150. https:// doi.org/10.1016/S0079-6123(09)17809-3 · DOI
  17. Henkel LA (2014) Point-and-shoot memories: The influence of taking photos on memory for a museum tour. Psychological Science 25, 396-402. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797613504438 · DOI · Paper page
  18. Henkel LA, Nash RA and Paton JA (2021) 'Say cheese!': How taking and viewing photos can shape memory and cognition. In Lane SM and Atchley P (eds), Human Capacity in the Attention Economy. American Psychological Association, 103-133. https://doi.org/10.1037/0000208-006 · DOI
  19. Hirst W and Echterhoff G (2012) Remembering in conversations: The social sharing and reshaping of memories. Annual Review of Psychology 63, 55-79. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-120710-100340 · DOI
  20. Hirst W and Stone CB (2015) Social aspects of memory. In Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences: An Interdisciplinary, Searchable, and Linkable Resource, 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118900772. · DOI · Paper page
  21. etrds0304 Hoffman HG (1997) Role of memory strength in reality monitoring decisions: Evidence from source attribution biases. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition 23(2), 371-383. https://doi.org/10. 1037/0278-7393.23.2.371 · DOI
  22. Hoskins A (2011) Anachronisms of media, anachronisms of memory: From collective memory to a new memory ecology. On Media Memory, Neiger M, Meyers, O and Zandberg E (eds). London: Palgrave Macmillan, 278-288.
  23. Hoskins A (2016) Memory ecologies. Memory Studies 9(3), 348-357. https://doi.org/10.1177/1750698016645274 · DOI · Paper page
  24. Hu Y, Manikonda L and Kambhampati S (2014) What we Instagram: A first analysis of Instagram photo content and user types. In Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Weblogs and Social Media, Ann Arbor, MI.
  25. Hutchins E (2010) Cognitive ecology. Topics in Cognitive Science 2(4), 705-715. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1756-8765. 2010.01089.x · DOI · Paper page
  26. Jiang T, Hou Y and Wang Q (2016) Does micro-blogging make us 'shallow'? Sharing information online interferes with information comprehension. Computers in Human Behavior 59, 210-214. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.02.008 · DOI
  27. Johnson AJ and Morley EG (2021) Sharing personal memories on ephemeral social media facilitates autobio- graphical memory. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking 24(11), 745-749. https://doi.org/10.1089/ cyber.2020.0511 · DOI · Paper page
  28. Keightley E and Pickering M (2014) Technologies of memory: Practices of remembering in analogue and digital photography. New Media & Society 16(4), 576-593. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444814532062 · DOI
  29. Koutstaal W, Schacter DL, Johnson MK and Galluccio L (1999) Facilitation and impairment of event memory produced by photograph review. Memory & Cognition 27, 478-493. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03211542 · DOI
  30. Lee E, Lee J, Moon JH and Sung Y (2015) Pictures speak louder than words: Motivations for using Instagram. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking 18(9), 552-556. https://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2015.0157 · DOI · Paper page
  31. Lewandowsky S, Ecker UKH and Cook J (2017) Beyond misinformation: Understanding and coping with the 'post-truth' era. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition 6(4), 353-369. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jarmac. 2017.07.008 · DOI · Paper page
  32. Luchman JN, Bergstrom J and Krulikowski C (2014) A motives framework of social media website use: A survey of young Americans. Computers in Human Behavior 38, 136-141. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2014.05.016 · DOI
  33. Mitchell A, Gottfried J, Stocking G, Walker M and Fedeli S (2019) Many Americans say made-up news is a critical problem that needs to be fixed. Pew Research Center. Available at https://www.pewresearch.org/ journalism/2019/06/05/many-americans-say-made-up-news-is-a-critical-problem-that-needs-to-be-fixed/ Oeldorf-Hirsch A and Sundar S S (2016) Social and technological motivations for online photo sharing. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 60, 624-642. https://doi.org/10.1080/08838151.2016.1234478 · DOI
  34. Sacchi DLM, Agnoli F and Loftus EF (2007) Changing history: Doctored photographs affect memory for past pub- lic events. Applied Cognitive Psychology 21(8), 1005-1022. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.1394 · DOI
  35. Sarvas R and Frohlich DM (2011) From Snapshots to Social Media -The Changing Picture of Domestic Photography. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-85729-247-6 · DOI
  36. Seyfi M and SoydaşAU (2017) The relationship between autobiographical memory and social media: Sharing childhood photographs on social media. Global Media Journal TR Edition 8(15), 57-70.
  37. Shteynberg G (2010) A silent emergence of culture: the social tuning effect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 99(4), 683-689. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0019573 · DOI
  38. Soares JS and Storm BC (2018) Forget in a flash: A further investigation of the photo-taking-impairment effect. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition 7(1), 154-160. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jarmac.2017.10.004 · DOI
  39. Soares JS and Storm BC (2022) Exploring functions of and recollections with photos in the age of smartphone cameras. Memory Studies 15(2), 287-303.
  40. Standing L, Conezio J and Haber RN (1970) Perception and memory for pictures: Single-trial learning of 2500 visual stimuli. Psychonomic Science 19(2), 73-74. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03337426 · DOI
  41. Stone CB and Jay ACV (2019) From the individual to the collective: The emergence of a psychological approach to collective memory. Applied Cognitive Psychology 33, 504-415. https://doi.org/10.1002/acp.3564 · DOI
  42. Stone CB and Wang Q (2019) From conversations to digital communication: The mnemonic consequences of con- suming and producing information via social media. Topics in Cognitive Science 11(4), 774-793. https://doi.org/ 10.1111/tops.12369 · DOI
  43. Stone CB, Coman A, Brown AD, Koppel J and Hirst W (2012) Toward a science of silence: The consequences of leav- ing a memory unsaid. Perspectives on Psychological Science 7(1), 39-53. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691611427303 · DOI
  44. Stone CB, Barnier AJ, Sutton J and Hirst W (2013) Forgetting our personal past: Socially shared retrieval-induced forgetting of autobiographical memories. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 142(4), 1084-1099. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0030739 · DOI
  45. Stone CB, Van der Haegen A, Luminet O and Hirst W (2014) Personally relevant vs. nationally relevant mem- ories: An intergenerational examination of World War II memories across and within Belgian French-speaking families. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition 3, 280-286. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jarmac.2014. 08.002 · DOI
  46. Storm BC and Soares JS (in press) Memory in the digital age. In Kahana MJ and Wagner AD (eds), Handbook of Human Memory: Foundations and Applications. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
  47. Strange D, Gerrie MP and Garry M (2005) A few seemingly harmless routes to false memory. Cognitive Processing 6, 237-242. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-005-0009-7 · DOI · Paper page
  48. Sutton J (2010) Exograms and interdisciplinarity: History, the extended mind, and the civilizing process. In Menary R (ed.), The Extended Mind. Cambridge: MIT Press, 189-225.
  49. Tamir D, Templeton E, Ward A and Zaki J (2018) Media usage diminishes memory for experiences. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 76, 161-168. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2018.01.006 · DOI · Paper page
  50. Thomson TJ, Angus D, Dootson P, Hurcombe E and Smith A (2020) Visual mis/disinformation in journalism and public communications: Current verification practices, challenges, and future opportunities. Journalism Practice. https://doi/org/10.1080/17512786.2020.1832139 · DOI
  51. Valenzuela S, Halpern D, Katz JE and Miranda JP (2019) The paradox of participation versus misinformation: Social media, political engagement, and the spread of misinformation. Digital Journalism 7(6), 802-823. https:// doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2019.1623701 · DOI
  52. Vasquez AN, Karanian J and Stone CB (2022) Sharing personal memories on social media and its mnemonic consequences. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied (Under review).
  53. Vygotsky LS and Luria A (1994) Tool and symbol in child development. In Van Der Veer R and Valsiner J (eds), The Vygotsky Reader. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 99-174.
  54. Wang Q (2020) Creation of the purposes of online memory sharing scale. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/jh5sx · DOI
  55. Wang Q, Lee D and Hou Y (2016) Externalising the autobiographical self: sharing personal memories online facilitated memory retention. Memory, 1-5. https://doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2016.1221115 · DOI
  56. Charles B. Stone is an Associate Professor of Psychology at John Jay College and the Graduate Center at the City University of New York. He is also an Associate Editor at Applied Cognitive Psychology. His research focuses on how social interactions shape the way individuals and groups remember the past. Ava Zwolinski received her undergraduate degree in Cognitive Science from McGill University and is currently a Psychology & Law doctoral candidate at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the Graduate Center at the City University of New York. Her research surrounds memory for public events and conspiratorial beliefs. Cite this article: Stone CB, Zwolinski A (2022). The mnemonic consequences associated with sharing personal photographs on social media. Memory, Mind & Media 1, e12, 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1017/mem.2022. · DOI

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Stone, C. B., & Zwolinski, A.
Affiliations
City University of New York (US)
Corresponding author
Stone, Charles B.
ORCID
Venue
Memory, Mind & Media
Publisher
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Published
2022
Volume
1
ISSN
2635-0238 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1017/mem.2022.6
OpenAlex
W4291015248
Cited by
13
References
9
Citations by year
2026: 2 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 7
FWCI
1.42
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Memory Mind & Media (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Memory Processes and Influences
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History › Photography and Visual Culture
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Identity, Memory, and Therapy
Keywords
personal photographs, social media, autobiographical memory, photography, image sharing, collective memory

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review