Effects on cognition of the burn after reading principle in ephemeral media applications

Abstract

Ephemeral media platforms allow users to send content in a format that automatically deletes the content after the recipient has accessed it – a phenomenon known as the ‘burn after reading’ principle. This study investigates whether awareness of the burn after read principle results in improved recognition memory for pictures. An experiment is designed where participants interact with pictures using a social media application. In Version A, participants are made aware of the persistent nature of the pictures, in Version B, participants are made aware of the ephemeral nature. Thereafter, participants are presented with the pictures again and must identify whether or not they previously encountered the exact same picture. Results showed that the burn after read principle does have a significant impact on accuracy in recognising pictures and the time spent watching them. Awareness of the burn after read principle resulted in better recognition memory for pictures and longer viewing times in the ephemeral application. This finding is in accordance with existing findings on the relationship between ephemerality and recognition memory.