I don’t know that we needed research to show that observing something and photographing that same thing affects our brains differently. Two distinct acts even from the same perspective will necessarily send disparate bits of information to the brain. Focusing your iPhone is not the same thing as focusing your brain sans iPhone. From Sarah Knapton at the Telegraph:

“Taking photographs at a birthday or a wedding has become as natural as blowing out candles or cutting the cake.

But our obsession with recording every detail of our happiest moments could be damaging our ability to remember them, according to new research.

A study has shown that taking pictures rather than concentrating fully on the events in front of us prevents memories taking hold.

Dr. Linda Henkel, from Fairfield University, Connecticut, described it as the ‘photo-taking impairment effect.’

She said: ‘People so often whip out their cameras almost mindlessly to capture a moment, to the point that they are missing what is happening right in front of them.”•

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Edwin H. Land brings instant gratification to photography, 1948: