Are You a Digital Hoarder When it Comes to Your Phone?
A recent survey suggests you might be one.
How much storage do you have on your phone? Have you had to purchase more storage? Chances are you don't need all of that storage. Now, before you throw your phone at me, let me explain. There's a good chance you have things on your phone right now that you don't actually need. I can't decide what those things are for you, but I would assume apps you never use, texts that are a year old, and 12 pictures of you in front of that mural downtown would probably be safe bets.
That being said, most of us still don't delete these.
To put an exact number on it, 52 percent of Americans don't delete anything off of their device. This makes me cringe since most of it is just clutter that's taking up space. As someone who is still operating on an older generation phone, space is precious. I know that deleting texts and browsing history is a huge storage saver. Even deleting apps and re-downloading them will help make some room as these need to get rid of unused data.
Storage space aside, what's the point in keeping some of these things?
That same survey found that 41 percent of digital hoarders believe they will need those things at some point in their life. Let me stop you there and say there is a good chance you won't need it and even if you do, you'll forget you saved it in the first place. It's kind of like "out of sight, out of mind."
The funny thing is that some those files we're clinging to can actually be incriminating. 24 percent of those surveyed said they would be embarrassed if someone say the things they have saved on their phone. So why is it there?
I'm sure most of us are at the point now if we wanted to clean up our digital space, it would be a huge undertaking. Maybe we can divide it up. Take it a month of pictures at a time... Or maybe a week at a time. Then move on to texts, emails, and perhaps one day before the next decade we can tackle that contact list. Too much?