Reminded me of Miyazaki Hayao's request to visitors of his museum[0]:

「カメラを向けるのではなく、この空間をご自分の目で見て、体で感じてください。そして、思い出は心の中に大切にしまって持ち帰って欲しい、これが私達の願いです。」

Which translates fairly literally to:

"Rather than aiming your camera, please see this space with your own eyes and feel it with your body. We hope that you carefully store these memories in your heart and take them home with you."

[0] http://www.ghibli-museum.jp/info/

It’s a beautiful sentiment, but I take more of an approach of moderation.

Your brain can use pictures as triggers later in life to reconnect a lot of those memories that get fuzzier over time.

Taking a video of a whole concert? Obnoxious and rude to the other members.

But I’ll take around 5 photos here and there and later on I’m glad I can go back and see them.

So it’s like, hey, phone/camera doesn’t work? Put it down then. You’ll remember what your toddler looks like because you’ve got other pictures.

I don't remember any of the thousands of such moments I've had with my child (who is now a teen). Photos trigger such wonderful memories though.

Unless you were looking at your phone the whole time trying to take the photo, then you missed out on the live event and the photo

While I appreciate the emotional sentiment here, it doesn't absolve Apple of their duty to ship a reliable product. To care about bugs. For what else are we spending upwards $1,000 on a phone for if the manufacturer can't provide us with a reliable operating system for it?

Because of how it makes you feel?

You don't know this person, you don't know what their experience was. Your comment borders on smarm.

Believe it or not, some people can both push a (virtual) button and look behind the camera at the same time. We preserve stuff for posterity. My own experience tells me that my daughter has a lot more fun looking at pictures and videos from when she was a toddler and hearing the stories behind them, than when I just tell random stories without any "immediate context" (location, other people, toys).

So true. My parents didn’t miss out not having a camera phone and neither did my grandparents. It’s amazing how dependant we’ve become on capturing moments. Sometimes even to the detriment of actually experiencing them.

This is just the 21st century version of old illiterate people whinging about younger, literate people writing things down or keeping reference materials instead of trying to memorize everything.

The human brain is way better at remembering where to find information than remembering information itself.

That’s really not what’s happening here. The only one moaning is the OP. Everyone else is just reminding the OP that their experience with the kids is still valuable even without a camera stuck in front of daddy’s face.

Might be related to the "Terror Management" theory. :)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21298470

We probably feel the need to preserve/hoard everything in a subconscious desire for immortality.

Could be, and maybe the motivation varies depending on the subject of the photo.

For example, I can go a whole vacation without taking any pictures. But with my kids I love to take their picture and get videos because they grow up so fast and it's fun now to go back and revisit a time when they were younger. They also love to see themselves when they were an age that they don't remember.

I think it's just a manifestation of FOMO. People fear they will one day regret not having more pictures, so they take more pictures than they might have otherwise "just incase."

It’s interesting that individuals have this desire- the goal should be survival of the species not of an individual

Like insects? No, thanks.

I get this sentiment. But whenever my wife and I swipe through old photos and videos of our kids, I am also overjoyed that I am a parent in the smartphone era.

Yes. The best camera is the one that’s with you. That’s what’s so great about the smartphone era—we have good cameras with us at all times.