I think there are a number of factors, that when combined, contribute to this behavior. 1. Access: we have our cell phones with us all the time. That wasn't tr

I think there are a number of factors, that when combined, contribute to this behavior. 1. Access: we have our cell phones with us all the time. That wasn't true about cameras in the past. 2. Quality: early camera phones took lousy pictures so they were never going to be as useful as a real camera. Now that the quality is as good as the point and shoot digital cameras we used to use, phone cameras are a no-brainer replacement. 3. Social Connection: although we are less "connected" to friends and family now, people want to feel more connected and that's easy with photo sharing and social media platforms. So they document everything so they can share, or humblebrag, or whatever they're going to do on these platforms to feel some kind of human interaction; however shallow and trite that may actually be... the feeling is real. 4. Memory: I think we're becoming reliant on our phones and computers to augment our memory. When I was a kid, I knew everybody's phone number. Now, I don't remember anything that I can look up. I did not decide to do that, that's just what has happened. So, there is some legit need to photo/video things that are important, that we do want to make sure we "remember". 5. Cost: the cost of cameras and memory is much cheaper than it was even when camera phones started to become a thing. This is more of an outlier, but the other thing is kids. Now that it's effectively free to take nearly unlimited photos and videos, I take a lot of my kids. I wish I had more photos and videos of my childhood. The funny thing is, my kids are still very young and even they love the photos and videos of themselves when they were even younger since they cannot remember those days at all. So, we'll all have those fun memories from when they were learning to walk, talk, read, ride a bike, use alexa, etc. My daughter just scored her first goal in soccer last week and I must have watched that 10 second video over 100 times now. Admittedly, the photos and videos of my kids are close to the only ones that actually do get viewed later, and I share these with family and they legitimately get excited when they receive them since they live far away. But I agree, we also need to be in the moment more.