Shutterfly Research Reveals Americans Are Taking More Photos but Failing to Share Memories

Nov 13, 2014

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Today Shutterfly, Inc. (NASDAQ:SFLY), the market leader in digital personalized photo products and services, unveiled new research about how Americans are sharing, preserving and re-visiting memories using photos. The survey among 1,100 regular photo takers reveals that Americans now take more than 10 billion photos every month, bolstered by the ever-present mobile phone, which nearly 60% of respondents say is their primary photo taking device. However, one in two respondents hasn’t looked at a picture more than ten years old in the last month and more than half of new photos aren’t being shared after they are snapped, leaving billions of memories lost on devices and hard drives, at risk of being forgotten.

Millennial Memories at Risk

Millennials are most at risk for losing memories, taking more photos than any other generation. Though millennials snap more than 100 photos each month on average, they’re unlikely to have looked at an old photo in the past month.

“Photos can be effective memory cues, but they only work if you revisit them. Shutterfly’s research shows that people are taking huge amounts of photos but our revisiting behavior isn’t scaling with our snapping behavior,” said Dr. Linda Henkel, a professor and cognitive psychologist at Fairfield University. “My earlier research showed that the act of taking photos actually makes us remember the moment less if we don’t take another glance at the picture. To truly keep a memory alive, revisiting the photo is as important as taking it.”

Ninety percent of photo takers agree that revisiting and sharing the story behind a photo with someone else makes it more meaningful, with 84% saying they learned about their family memories from photos accompanied by verbal stories or detailed captions. Nearly half of people say that as a society Americans are not spending enough time with family revisiting the stories behind photos, with two-thirds wanting to share more online and in person.

“We have seen a seismic shift in the way memories are captured, shared and preserved, but the importance of storytelling hasn’t changed,” said Karl Wiley, senior vice president and general manager of Shutterfly. “Storytelling and shared connections are part of Shutterfly’s DNA and giving consumers simple and intuitive ways to access, share, and celebrate their memories is the guiding principle in everything we do. Our goal is for the technology to make it easier to archive and share photos so that users can spend more time telling their stories.”

About Shutterfly, Inc.

Shutterfly, Inc. is the leading manufacturer and digital retailer of high-quality personalized products and services offered through a family of lifestyle brands. Founded in 1999, the Shutterfly, Inc. family of brands includes Shutterfly, where your photos come to life in photo books, cards and gifts; Tiny Prints, premium cards and stationery for all life’s occasions; Wedding Paper Divas, wedding invitations and stationery for every step of the planning process; Treat, personalized greeting cards that really stand out; MyPublisher, one of the pioneers in the photo book industry and creator of easy-to-use photo book-making software; ThisLife,a private, cloud-based solution that makes it easy for consumers to find, share and enjoy their photos and videos, all in one place; and BorrowLenses, the premier online marketplace for photographic and video equipment rentals. For more information about Shutterfly, Inc. (NASDAQ:SFLY), visit www.shutterflyinc.com.

About The Research

The data points referenced above come from a study commissioned by Shutterfly, produced by research firm Edelman Berland and conducted as an online survey among a total of 1,169 US photo takers. Data was collected August 19-21, 2014 by Edelman Berland. The overall margin of error is +/- 2.9%.

Shutterfly, Inc.
Nicole Stier, 650-610-6013
Nstier@shutterfly.com

Source: Shutterfly, Inc.

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