[Survey ~10 min] Google Photos tells me to "remember this day" and I feel nothing. Researching why photo memories are broken (?) for us

So Christmas 2025, I'm bored, scrolling YouTube, and I stumble on that video. You know the one. "Picture an apple in your mind." And I'm sitting there like...

You know how it goes from there. The rabbit hole. This sub. The existential crisis. Wild few days.

Anyway, once things started clicking (turns out I also have SDAM, which explains even more), I started noticing something that had always quietly annoyed me but I never had the words for.

Google Photos hits me with "remember this day 3 years ago" and I'm staring at a photo of myself at some dinner going... I have absolutely no idea what was happening here. I recognize my own face. That's about it. No warmth, no story, no "oh yeah that night was amazing." Just pixels and a location tag.

Turns out I also have SDAM, which explains a lot more.

Fast forward - I'm doing my masters at Georgia Tech, taking an HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) course, and we have to pick a real interface to redesign. Didn't have to think twice. Photo memories are broken for me and nobody's even trying to fix it because the entire design assumes your brain does the heavy lifting of visual video playing when you see a photo (just an hypothesis).

I'm working on something that doesn't make that assumption. But first I need actual data from actual aphants (and non-aphants too for comparison).

Made a quick survey, ~10 min, fully anonymous: https://forms.gle/oV3G43FNYEPGYEwA9

It covers how you experience old photos vs videos, whether you do anything to capture context, and how you'd feel about AI helping piece together what a moment was about.

Also genuinely want to know from you guys — has a photo ever actually worked? Like actually brought something back? Or is it always just "yep, that happened I guess"?