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Digital Hoarding Can Make Us Feel Just as Stressed and Overwhelmed as Physical Clutter, Research Suggests (bbc.com)
Emerging research on digital hoarding -- a reluctance to get rid of the digital clutter we accumulate through our work and personal lives -- suggests that it can make us feel just as stressed and overwhelmed as physical clutter. From a report: Not to mention the cybersecurity problems it can cause for individuals and businesses and the way it makes finding that one email you need sometimes seem impossible. The term digital hoarding was first used in 2015 in a paper about a man in the Netherlands who took several thousand digital photos each day and spent hours processing them. "He never used or looked at the pictures he had saved, but was convinced that they would be of use in the future," wrote the authors.
In a study published earlier this year Neave and his colleagues asked 45 people about how they deal with emails, photos, and other files. The reasons people gave for hanging on to their digital effects varied -- including pure laziness, thinking something might come in handy, anxiety over the idea of deleting anything and even wanting "ammunition" against someone. The team has used those responses to develop a questionnaire to assess digital hoarding behaviours in the workplace, and have tested it with 203 people who use computers as part of their job. Their findings show that email appears to be a particular problem: among participants, the average inbox had 102 unread and 331 read emails.
In a study published earlier this year Neave and his colleagues asked 45 people about how they deal with emails, photos, and other files. The reasons people gave for hanging on to their digital effects varied -- including pure laziness, thinking something might come in handy, anxiety over the idea of deleting anything and even wanting "ammunition" against someone. The team has used those responses to develop a questionnaire to assess digital hoarding behaviours in the workplace, and have tested it with 203 people who use computers as part of their job. Their findings show that email appears to be a particular problem: among participants, the average inbox had 102 unread and 331 read emails.
>> Emerging research on digital hoarding -- a reluctance to get rid of the digital clutter we accumulate through our work and personal lives -- suggests that it can make us feel just as stressed and overwhelmed as physical clutter.
Nice try Windows 10 Disk Cleanup. I saw your other article about needing 7GB on my machines today.
For me the winning move is just to change jobs every few years. "All those emails I never answered? F' 'em. Clean inbox and a raise here I come!"
I don't think it's just the cost of storage or the cost of finding a particular thing, but also the psychology of seeing a bunch of junk, not knowing what it is, and not knowing if there's some problem lurking in that mess.
Like, ok, sure, it might not be too bad to find a particular email you're actively looking for. But how confident are you that you have a grasp of what information exists in your mailbox? How sure are you that you didn't miss an important email at some point, or forgot to respond to an email chain you were on?
Maybe you're extremely organized and you're fine. Or maybe you think you're fine, but the psychological stress is impacting you, but you're not consciously aware of it.
I'm pretty organized, but I've realized that it still stresses me out. I don't even remember all of the accounts I've signed up for over the past few decades. A while ago, I spent a few days trying to clear some of those out and shut them down. Still, there could be some old Dropbox account out there with a bunch of personal information that I signed up for with one of my old alternate addresses, and I might have just forgotten about it. Currently I have 4 different email accounts and 4 different online storage accounts, each for a different reason, but I think it adds to my stress level that I can't keep track of where all of my information is.