Commentary: Thousands of emails in your inbox? You may be a digital hoarder

NEWCASTLE, England: How many emails are in your inbox? If the answer is thousands, or if you often struggle to find a file on your computer among its cluttered hard drive, then you might be classed as a digital hoarder.

A case study published in the British Medical Journal in 2015 described a 47-year-old man who, as well as hoarding physical objects, took around 1,000 digital photographs every day. He would then spend many hours editing, categorising and copying the pictures onto various external hard drives. The “hoarder by instruction” keeps data on behalf of their company . Finally, “anxious hoarders” have strong emotional ties to their data – and are worried about deleting it.Although digital hoarding doesn’t interfere with personal living space, it can clearly have a negative impact upon daily life. Research also suggests digital hoarding poses a serious problem to businesses and other organisations, and even has a negative impact on the environment.

At first glance, digital hoarding may not appear much of a problem – especially if digital hoarders work for large organisations. Storage is cheap and effectively limitless thanks to internet “cloud” storage systems.First, storing thousands of files or emails is inefficient. Wasting large amounts of time looking for the right file can reduce productivity.File photo of someone using a phone and looking at a computer.

While people can be helped to stop accumulating, they are more resistant when it comes to actually getting rid of their cherished possessions – perhaps because they “anthropomorphise” them, treating inanimate objects as if they had thoughts and feelings.

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