Digital hoarding

August 27th, 2011

As a relatively frugal person, I have the tendency to want to keep things lying around “just in case” I end up finding a use for them. With my recent minimalist kick, I’ve been trying to suppress this habit by setting a limit on how much I could keep around, and how much just needed to be recycled, donated, or thrown out. I’ve been pretty good with my physical stuff, but I tend to neglect how much crap I’m storing on my computer that I don’t need. I wonder, if you keep *digital* possessions for longer than they are useful, is it still considered hoarding?

I subscribe to more blogs in Google Reader than I can reasonably keep up with. I tend to subscribe to blogs and then forget about them, only to wonder why this strange post showed up in my feed. (My rule now is, if I don’t remember why I subscribed in the first place, then I should probably unsubscribe.)

I think the answer is that hoarding digital possessions is still possible, if they keep you from appreciating the truly worthwhile digital possessions you do have. Whether that’s a few gigabytes of blurry photos, twenty blogs you don’t read, or a hundred twitter users whose posts you don’t care about, deleting / unsubscribing / unfollowing can really be a weight off your shoulders.