When BBC London uploaded a video of the Carnaby Street Christmas lights being switched on last week, the comments section filled with thousands of people reacting to what they saw.

But, it wasn't the bright lights or the pretty fireworks that they were reacting to, it was the sea of spectators filming on their phones.

"Remember when we used to look at stuff directly with our eyes? Those were the good old days," said one comment. Another simply said: "It's such a sad sad sight."

Former EastEnders actress Natalie Cassidy commented: "Why is this piece not mentioning the fact that no-one is looking through their eyes at this beautiful display? It's really scary and depressing."

Many of the comments questioned why people would film the fireworks rather than watch them in real life, with one saying: "Nice to see everyone living in the moment, there's a 90% chance they will never watch the video again too."

Since camera phones became so universally owned, a number of studies have been conducted to understand the impact on our memories when recording events via photos or films.

Many of these studies conclude that taking a photograph or film of something can actually prevent us from remembering something accurately, rather than helping us remember the moment.

Scientists have termed this as "photo-taking-impairment", a phrase first coined by cognitive psychologist, Dr Linda Henkel, during research on issue in 2014.

Subsequent studies and experiments conducted on memory have repeatedly shown that humans subconsciously rely on the camera to do the work of remembering, rather than tasking the brain with memorising events as they happened.

For Dr Kaitlyn Regehr, from University College London and the University of Toronto, the interesting bit here is not the people filming en masse, it's the people angry about it online.

"This is not the first year that people have attended events and watched those events through screens," said the smartphone academic.

"But what's significant is that this year there's a lot of critical public discourse happening. And that, I think, is really, really positive," she added.

The professor said the comments, such as those on the Carnaby Street video, "say a lot about where we are as a society at the moment," and said it showed "our discomfort with the amount of influence that big tech is playing on our lives".

Dr Regehr said this shift in attitudes towards phones, and recording events was down to a number of factors, including the social media ban for under 16s in the UK, due to begin in March 2027, as well as lawsuits against social media companies in the US.

She said these more negative news stories were building "public understanding", and said it was encouraging people to "want to take greater control over these technologies".

Dr Regehr said the "backlash" on the Carnaby Street video could be due to the fact it's Christmas, and people feel strongly that it shouldn't be experienced through a phone.

"We, as millennial parents, have memory of Christmases prior to smartphones.

"We have quite visceral ideas about what that meant to us and I think people are becoming increasingly uncomfortable with their children not having those same experiences or the way in which technology is mediating those experiences for their children.

"Parents are now becoming really uncomfortable with the hold through which technology has on their families' lives."