How much does your camera determine your approach to important moments in life?

Some parents today are like the paparazzi. Bombarding their children trying to document their lives growing up. From videotaping their first steps to graduation day there are few big moments that aren't documented.

It seems that we don’t have time to live in the moment. We snap a picture to help us recall the feelings of that day. If we didn't have that picture, we fear that those feelings and memories would be lost forever.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtyqS68ViWk

As blogger Dave Pell argues, our desire to document everything is tainting our recollection of the event. He explains how his son’s memories of his second birthday have be altered because of the documentation he saw recording that event.

“The instant my son looked at the image, his imagination-driven perception of himself was replaced by a digital reproduction of the moment he had just experienced. He had a few seconds, not nearly long enough, to create his own internal version of what that moment looked — and by extension felt — like.

It’s impossible to create a mental picture of a moment when a digital version of that moment is staring you in the face (and often within seconds, the Facebook too).”

On the flip side, photos and videos offer a way to relive the event. For instance the New Yorker wrote, professional mountain biker Aaron Case is able to receive the same adrenaline rush of coursing down the Smoky Mountains with the help of his GoPro, a camera mounted on his helmet nearly replicating the real-life experience.

Today’s Question: How much does your camera determine your approach to important moments in life?

• Thank you!
• Should gun makers be allowed to create handguns that look like cellphones?
• What is your reaction to Tay, Microsoft’s AI chat-bot that learned to be racist?
• Do you support the reopening of a private prison in Appleton?