“A photograph is like a wormhole, providing a direct link between two distantly separated locations in space and time – the present in which we view the photograph and the epoch in our lives when the photo was taken,” professor of literature and linguistics at Mars Hill University, Dr. Hal McDonald, told Bored Panda, discussing the significance of pictures and the role they play in regards to people’s sense of nostalgia.

“It’s like a time capsule—a fleeting moment from our past captured on film (or pixels) and buried in some box in our closet or album on our phone to await rediscovery months, years, or even decades later, bringing that long-forgotten instant to life once again,” Prof. McDonald added.

“And with the memory of that moment come whatever emotions we may have been feeling when the shutter clicked. That image of our family gathered around the table for Christmas dinner, or college friends making stupid faces on graduation day, or that puppy poking its head out of a gift box on our tenth birthday, can instantaneously fill us with the feeling of contentment, anticipation, or joy that those happy moments gave us when we lived them.”

“But it is not just the isolated moment captured on a 4x6 scrap of paper to which a photograph transports us, for that moment, when we actually lived it, was not isolated at all. It was but a small strand of an intricate web of all the lived moments that surrounded it in both space and time—the area that lay outside the visual field of the photograph, and all the things we experienced in the moments before and after the moment portrayed in it,” Dr. McDonald continued.

“Gazing at a photograph not only allows us to relive a special moment. It temporarily immerses us in the entire world in which that moment occurred—the sight of your mother, who never liked being in pictures, holding the camera and telling you to say ‘cheese,’ the smell of sausage b***s and cheese straws wafting in from the kitchen, and the sound of your grandfather laughing himself hoarse over the antics of your little brother, none of which are portrayed in the picture, but all of which spring to life in your memory as you recall the moment.”

According to Prof. McDonald, once we connect with our past through the wormhole of a photograph, we might want to stay in that state for a while, which is likely why we tend to spend quite some time flipping through the pages, when we actually take time to open a photo album.

“We want to stay there as long as we can, savoring the pleasure of recapturing some part of our past—and perhaps even of ourselves—that we had long ago forgotten,” he noted. “A single photo can carry us to that distant place. Flipping through the pages of a photo album can allow us to stay there and visit for a while.”

Some people might think that the days of photo albums are long gone. And well, they’re not entirely wrong. As much as I—a fan of photo albums, scrap books, and similar forms of nostalgia—would hate to admit it, it looks like increasingly fewer people put all of their pictures neatly in actual albums and rely more on the digital ones on their phones or computers instead.

That’s not surprising. Bearing in mind the hassle of having to print them out—not to mention sort through them—it makes sense to have them always on hand on your devices. This way, it’s easier to share them, too, as it doesn’t require flipping through what feels like hundreds of albums to find that one picture you were looking for (and, perish the thought, have to use a photocopier so you can send it to someone).

A report on people’s changing printing habits, carried out by Epson Europe, seconded the idea that photo albums are becoming a thing of the past. According to it, the vast majority—as much as 86%—of people have gotten out of the habit of building family albums. It also found that the average person hasn’t looked at their family album for more than 1.5 years (19 months, to be exact).

While most people no longer collect pictures in family albums, they agree that browsing physical pictures tends to have a positive effect on them. According to the aforementioned report, roughly 80% of people say that looking at pictures of loved ones make them happy and more than 50% say they experience feelings of pride and nostalgia.

Another way that physical pictures reportedly add to people’s well-being is bringing the young generation closer to their relatives, even if via an image, and giving them a stronger sense of identity.

“Looking through an old photo album together is a good way of strengthening, and in some cases repairing, the ties that make a family a ‘family’,” Dr. McDonald told Bored Panda, talking about the role family pictures play in people’s relationships with those of their kin.

“Our memories, particularly nostalgic ones, remind us of who we are and what is really important to us, and photographs put us in touch with our nostalgic memories. Looking at photos together with family members stirs our collective sense of nostalgia, reminding us of the experiences we shared, and the common identity we share, as a result of sharing those experiences.”

“Not content to merely look at old family photos, many families work to recreate those photos, standing in front of the same backdrop as in the original, striking the same pose, and in some cases even donning the same attire—only a larger, adult version,” Prof. McDonald noted. “The results of these whimsical photographical experiments are very often amusing, or even comical. The experience of actually taking the photograph, however, can be deeply meaningful, carrying us back to the moment portrayed in the original photo, and reminding us of all that has changed and, just as importantly, all that has remained the same, throughout the years separating the two family photos.”

In addition to the sense of pride or nostalgia that pictures bring, there is another thing people tend to enjoy about looking at them, according to Epson Europe’s report, and that is the handwritten notes that are often found on the back of the photograph.

Not only do people seem to love finding names and dates written on them, some even believe that they are missing out, because the digital pictures most of us take nowadays don’t allow for such a sentimental kind of detail.

With or without notes scribbled on the back, a picture allows one to freeze a certain moment—no matter how special or mundane—in time, and chances are, looking back at them in the future, all of such moments will feel special.

In an interview with Bored Panda, Prof. McDonald noted that “all those past moments that we cherish reliving through photographs were once present moments that someone, for some reason, saw fit to capture in a photograph. Some of those moments undoubtedly felt very ordinary and unremarkable at the time, but as the years roll by and the circumstances of our lives change, that unremarkable moment is unremarkable no more, rendered precious by the passage of time. And only because someone thought to aim a camera and snap the shutter do we have a ready means of revisiting that moment.”