Photograph taking in the classroom impairs memory of learned material

College students commonly take photographs with cell phones rather than making longhand notes during classes. Previous studies have found that this negatively impacts memory, with photographed objects being less well remembered compared to observed objects. This study examined the effect of taking photographs on college students’ classroom learning and the mechanisms of this effect. Experiment 1 examined whether taking photographs with cell phones during class negatively impacted the learning outcomes of college students, that is, whether this behavior led to the photograph-taking impairment effect. Experiment 2 examined the cognitive mechanisms underlying the photograph-taking impairment effect, comprising attentional disengagement caused by manual photograph taking, and cognitive offloading resulting from saving photographs. The results revealed that taking photographs with cell phones negatively impacted classroom learning and induced the photograph-taking impairment effect, which may be due to attentional disengagement caused by the manual capturing of photographs.