A Picture is Worth A Thousand Words
Or is it? How many photographs do you think you have taken in your lifetime? What do you do with these photographs? Do you print them out, place them carefully in scrapbooks or albums. Do you revisit them often with delight? That last bit is unlikely.
If you are a parent in the digital age, your iCloud likely regularly reminds you that you have too many photos of your children. We snap pictures of them when they are sleeping when they are playing when they are covered in food, even when they are in the midst of actual terror sitting on a strange man’s lap dressed in an aggressive red outfit.
Something troubles me about photos of children.
Picture this (pun intended), a father and a child interacting on the beach warmly and reciprocally. The child is smiling and laughing, the father is too. Then he pulls out his phone. But the interaction is sustained, the child beckons her father with her sweet grin and giggle. The father opens his camera intending to capture this moment. The sky is a vibrant blue, the lighting is just right, and his beautiful daughter is beaming up at him. How could he resist the urge to freeze that moment in time forever?
He can’t. So he doesn’t. He smiles at his daughter, and she returns his warmth, *snap*, he looks at his phone, he got it. She looks perfect. And now instead of admiring his in-the-flesh-real-life irreplaceable baby girl, he is admiring a 2D image of her. One that his iPhone has carefully adjusted to be just a little more luminously colored than the real daughter in front of him.
And here his daughter sits wondering why her father has withdrawn his warmth and engagement with her. Has she done something wrong?
The back and forth smiling and laughing between father and daughter are engaging in is what is known as “serve and return” interactions. They are foundational to social skills, language development, and much more. They are among the most important skills young children practice. I smile, you smile, I cry, you frown. This is how we began to develop interactional synchrony and understand how our behaviors and actions affect others.
My worry about the number of pictures we take of our children is related to the serve and return, this interactional synchrony, which is so important to the development of the person. If in the middle of a conversation with you I stop abruptly and began engaging with my phone you will feel slighted. Especially if you were enjoying the interaction. You might feel insecure, even anger at my lack of concern and respect for you and our time together.
It’s unlikely this consideration is ever made for the child on the other end of the camera. How must a child feel when your warmth instantly dissipates and is directed at your phone?
If the feeling of longing and hurt that your child, or anyone you are with for that matter, isn’t enough to make you rethink how important capturing that experience is maybe this will help. Numerous studies are beginning to show that our memories get worse when we take photos. Capturing that moment of joy on the beach decreases your ability to recall the actual experience. So not only are you shortchanging your subject you are shortchanging yourself. Something to consider before you pull out your phone to capture that moment.
