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The picture above shows the scene I saw two weekends ago at the Lee Dewyze American Idol celebration at Arlington Race Track. We couldn’t see Lee perform from where we were standing, but had a great view of the screen.

A week earlier, I was in the overflow seating for Wheaton College’s graduation, where we watched commencement via live video feed. In both cases, attendees weren’t able to take video or photos of the actual action, so what did they do? They pointed their cameras and cel phones at the video screens and recorded that instead.

And in both cases, I was genuinely surprised. “What’s the point?” I thought. There’s other ways to get photos and footage of the actual event without having to take your own photo of the video screen.

So what is it? Is there something that makes people feel more connected to the live experience (even if they’re watching it on a screen) when they’re participating in it by taking a photo? Is there something that says “I was there” with a photo or video you’ve taken yourself, as opposed to something you could find online?

I wonder if our desire to be involved a large gathering is so strong that we’re willing to treat non-live events, or video feeds of the event, as if they’re actually happening in the same room.