Is your phone overflowing with duplicate photos? Is your computer full but you refuse to delete anything? This increasingly widespread behavior has a name:
digital hoardingor compulsive accumulation of digital files. A phenomenon that says a lot about our relationship with memory, control… and anxiety. Decryption, with psychologist Pascal Anger.
What exactly is digital hoarding?
Digital hoarding — literally, “digital accumulation” — refers to a tendency to massively keep data, files, photos, emails, screenshots, notes, videos… without ever sorting. A bit like those people who don’t know how to throw anything away at home, but digital version.
We keep “just in case”, we accumulate “as a precaution”, we store “while waiting”… And very quickly, the phone, the computer, the cloud become virtual cellars that are impossible to manage.
Far from being trivial, this phenomenon attracted the attention of researchers in 2018. They identified four major issues:
- A drop in productivity, because we spend more time searching for files than moving forward.
- An impact on psychological well-being, with a feeling of mental saturation.
- Cybersecurity problems, because we no longer distinguish what must be protected.
- A possible link with material accumulation, as in syllogomania.
In an era where everything can be saved, the temptation to accumulate becomes massive… and sometimes uncontrollable.
Why do we keep everything? What it says about us
So why this accumulation… which ultimately doesn’t help much. For experts, we keep everything first of all out of a need to keep “just in case” but also because an illusion of control systematically comes into play.
The psychologist Pascal Anger finds this mechanism in digital accumulators:
“Keeping files, photos or folders can be reassuring. It’s a way of saying to yourself: I have everything, I have control, I can find them if necessary. Even if, in reality, we can’t find anything anymore.”
He describes a very contemporary paradox: we store to reassure ourselves, but this storage ends up creating stress and confusion.
“The problem is not being disorganized. Many have order in their disorder. The real question is: do you find your way? And does it waste your time or put you under pressure?” continues the psychologist.
According to him, digital accumulation responds to a need to reassure oneself, to preserve proof of one’s life; but when it overflows, another effect appears: “We know we have something… but we no longer know where. This is where accumulation becomes a source of stress”. An observation all the more true since digital technology gives the illusion of infinite space — until saturation catches up with us.
5 signs that you are digital hoarding
Does this concern you? Researchers have identified several common traits among digital accumulators. Here are the most telling signs:
- You recognize yourself in keeping it “just in case“. Useless captures, failed photos, expired documents… You store without sorting, for fear of missing information one day.
- You cannot delete a file, even an unnecessary one. The very idea of clicking “delete” creates resistance: what if you need it? This is a key marker of digital hoarding.
- You waste time finding your files. Despite search engines, the more data there is, the more disorganization sets in. And this generates fatigue, frustration… and inefficiency.
- You are emotionally attached to your files. A photo of a banal moment can become “incompressible”. Result: each file seems loaded with unjustified emotional weight.
- You duplicate everything across multiple platforms.
You send your files by email “for safekeeping”, you store on multiple clouds, on multiple devices. This reflex increases duplicates — and the risk of security breaches.
How to get out of digital hoarding? Psychologist’s advice
Rest assured if you care about your photos. Getting out of it doesn’t mean deleting everything, but regaining control over your digital space. And there are effective ways to do this.
- Identify what is bothering you. Pascal Anger recommends first observing: “What do you get most often criticized for? Where are you wasting time? What puts you under stress?”;
- Set times dedicated to sorting. The end of the year, or the beginning of each month, can become a “clearance ritual”. Delete what is obsolete, archive what matters, classify what remains. “Sorting is a way of regaining control. And certain periods lend themselves to this: end of year, back to school…”;
- Reduce emotional attachment to files. Not all photos are essential memories. Not all documents are archives. Asking yourself a question can change everything: Will this file really be useful to me? ;
- Rethink your organizational system. Create simple folders, use labels, automate certain backups…A clear system reduces stress;
- Agree to throw away. This is often the major difficulty. But as Pascal Anger says: “Knowing how to throw away means telling yourself that you can start with something cleaner.”
And that makes it lighter, psychologically as well as numerically.