![]() ![]() The collector might not even be a digital hoarder at all. Some might consider disengaged hoarders lazy, but they see no harm in, well, what they can’t see: their stockpiles of data. They’re not very organized in the first place and it feels too much of a headache to tidy up their digital life. Not to mention, it takes less time to keep something than toss it. The disengaged digital hoarder simply doesn’t know what to do with all of their digital clutter. Usually, compliant digital hoarders have no emotional attachment to the digital clutter they keep. Still, by being compliant with data hoarding, they are also being compliant with the negative consequences of digital hoarding. It’s often workplace protocols or organization structures that make them hold onto things. The compliant digital hoarder isn’t a data hoarder by choice. After all, what if that document they haven’t opened in a decade becomes important in the future? Instead, they keep mostly everything because it gives them comfort to know they have them, just in case. As the moniker indicates, to the anxious digital hoarder, throwing something away stirs up waves of anxiety. The anxious digital hoarder does not like to get rid of their digital clutter, period. He began with a 2019 study surveying people’s digital hoarding behaviors and followed up with a 2020 study that identifies types of digital hoarders. ![]() Nick Neave, associate professor in psychology and director of the Hoarding Research Group at Northumbria University, has been at the forefront of discovering why. Others recognize that data storage solutions are cheap, so why not save everything? There are even some folks who like to hang onto digital content to use against others. For instance, some companies might encourage people to keep emails for later reference. Turns out, people have their reasons for hoarding in cyberspace. In fact, digital hoarding, meaning letting our digital content pile up, can have negative consequences on our wellbeing, on our cybersecurity, and on the environment.Īll this to say, it’s time to look inward - in your inbox, cloud storage, desktop, phones, etc. - and ask yourself, “Am I a digital hoarder?” Consider the following points and also tips to declutter your digital life for the better. After all, you can’t actually trip over hundreds of unread emails, thousands of blurry photos, and maybe even all those “The Home Edit” episodes downloaded on your devices. And much of that time, we’ll be ignoring our digital clutter. Our captivation with the concept has even spun out a few franchises. Thanks to TLC’s “Hoarders,” the Marie Kondo craze, and “The Home Edit” frenzy, there’s no shortage of resources for how to tidy up our physical surroundings.īut what about where we spend a great deal of our days - on our devices and in cyberspace? On average, adults will spend anywhere from 34 years to 44 years of their life staring at screens. Whether you hang onto items too long yourself or are a self-proclaimed neat freak, on some level we all have a relationship with clutter. ![]()
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