Looking at Your Photos Can Be Uplifting, Enlightening, or Bittersweet

Source: Krystine I Batcho

The introduction of photography created a new reservoir for memories. By the turn of the 20th century, cameras practical for use by non-professionals made it possible for taking photos to become part of ordinary life. Initially, most people could not afford to participate, but by the mid-1950s taking photos had become commonplace.

The more recent transition to a predominant reliance on digital photography has made taking and saving photos significantly more convenient and affordable. As of 2021, approximately 4.5 trillion photos have been stored on Google Photos, with 28 billion uploaded each week. Social media users share at least 3.5 billion images every day. And such numbers have been increasing dramatically year by year.

For many, archiving even the most mundane parts of life has become nearly automatic. A hamburger, a salad, or rocks on the path of a hike—almost anything can be captured, saved, and shared. Not all experiences will be revisited and inspire reminiscence.

The Psychological Effects of Looking Through Your Photos

As links to our past, photos can influence the impact of our memories on our present lives, future plans, and well-being. What do photos add to our memories of our lives?

Clearly, a photo is not the memory of what it has captured in an image. Memories go beyond the original place, thing, or experience, and the act of remembering is not a simple perception of a specific image. Yet as the impetus for reliving a portion of our past, photos can serve distinctive psychological purposes.

1. Looking through your photographs can increase positive affect and decrease negative affect.

Photos can elevate our mood and diminish negative feelings. Seeing something beautiful, funny, cute, or important can make us happy by virtue of the qualities of what appears in the image and by reviving the feelings we had when the picture was taken. Research has shown that viewing images associated with specific positive autobiographical memories increased positive mood and helped repair negative mood induced by a sad film clip.

2. Photographs can correct inaccurate memories.

The research studies controlled the content that induced negative mood and the number and type of images viewed to counteract the induced affect. In daily life, the impacts of viewing photographs can extend beyond what happens in a controlled session.

A photograph can correct inaccurate details of how someone remembers a person, place, or event. Over time and life experiences, our memories can become distorted in both subtle and substantive ways. While many details are not important, there can be instances of pivotal corrections.

3. Old photos can remind us of who we (and others) once were.

Viewing a childhood photo, someone might realize how very young they had been when they experienced a transformative event. They might suddenly understand how vulnerable and innocent they had been.

The recognition of who they were then can impact their current self-esteem or change their understanding of how their past contributed to who they had become. Such insights can prompt positive or negative responses. Feelings of guilt or resentment can be generated or diminished, relationships can be strengthened or injured, and personal growth can be encouraged or hindered.

4. Comparing the past and present can help us appreciate how far we’ve come.

Images from our past can change how we feel about our current self or situation. If photos portray our past as substantially better than our present, they can make us feel disappointed, sad, or ashamed of the path we’ve followed. We might reflect on mistakes or unwise choices we’ve made. On the other hand, if we view our present in a favorable light relative to our past, we might feel proud or grateful for our progress.

5. Personal photographs can evoke nostalgia.

Whether positive or negative, old photos often make us nostalgic for meaningful portions of our lives. Research has found that personal photographs decreased induced negative affect more effectively than did generic images and suggested that greater emotional benefit was due to the ability of personal photos to elicit personally relevant memories and nostalgia. Bittersweet nostalgia has been associated with a heightened sense of coherence and self-continuity, as the connection between past and present is strengthened.

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Personal photos trigger more vivid memories that contain richer perceptual-sensory information, enabling deeper feelings of re-experiencing the past. The sense of being in the past can help to distance someone from current problems, sadness, or feelings of hopelessness or despair. The reverie facilitated by the perusal of personal photos can yield insights into the meaning and purpose of one’s life.

6. Nostalgic photos can motivate us to reconnect with those who have been important to us.

Nostalgia can motivate us to reconnect with those we have lost track of over time who have been important in our lives. Nostalgia is a social-cognitive-emotional experience. The sadness of loss can enhance our appreciation of loved ones in our present and encourage reaching out to others—those in our past as well as in our present.

Why Looking at Photos Doesn't Always Feel Good

Many of the effects are largely positive. Still, it's important to be aware of possible pitfalls, like the following.

1. Some photos can make us sad when we have lost someone or miss what we can no longer do.

Photos can remind us of irreversible change and loss. As Lee Ann Womack sang in the song "Mama Lost Her Smile," “You don’t take pictures of the bad times.”

One study found that personal photos were more likely to decrease negative mood in younger than older adults. Young adults routinely use social media to share moments of their lives, enhancing the role of photos in their self-expression and identity formation. Preserving the present in online posts helps connect their present to more recent past events.

But later in life, photos are more likely to elicit a wider range of emotional significance. In "Old Photographs," Carlene Carter sang “Old photographs always make me laugh,” as she recounts youthful joys, “rain on our bicycles, sun meltin’ popsicles.” But looking at old photographs makes her wonder “what happened to the dreams,” and she concludes “old photographs sometimes make me cry.”

Wedding photos, for example, might remind someone who has lost a spouse of the loved one who had played the most integral role in their life. While photos prompt younger adults to connect or reconnect with others, such reunion might no longer be possible for older adults.

2. When we view certain photographs, we might gain new upsetting insights into parts of our past.

A picture can remind us of what we wish we could forget. As pointed out in Lady Antebellum’s song "Pictures," “The camera doesn’t show the way it hurt / You’d never know by the smile on my face that inside I was dying, later that night I’d be crying / The last one before goodbye.”

Photos can remind us of unfulfilled aspirations, unkept promises, or lost love. Aging, injury, or medical conditions can make it emotionally painful for a former athlete or celebrity to be reminded of how they were “back then.” The sorrow of lost love can be enduring. As Ringo Starr sang in "Photograph," “All I’ve got is a photograph / I can’t get used to living here while my heart is broke / as the years go by.”

Research has shown that nostalgic photographs can reduce induced physical pain. However, among women separated from their romantic partner, a photograph decreased loneliness and increased closeness to their partner, while nostalgia did not. When a photograph serves as a substitute for what we miss, it can be comforting.

In his song "Photograph," Ed Sheeran described keeping love in a photograph: “You won’t ever be alone / you can fit me inside the necklace you got when you were 16 / next to your heartbeat where I should be.” But when a photo heightens the loss we feel or yearning for its impossible return, it can deepen our sadness.

Conclusion

Ultimately, though, looking through personal photographs can be a healthy experience, helping us stay or become connected and reach out to others to give and receive support. It can help you recognize that the value of who you were and what you did in the past remains, understand change as an opportunity to engage in new challenges for growth and accomplishment, and remember that you have outgrown the disappointments of your past, demonstrating your resilience.

We can find meaning and purpose in different incarnations as we move through life.