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Mel is very minimal and hates clutter in her home, however her phone is another story. Im holding onto a lot of stagnant energy and Im wondering why Im depressed and feel heavy, said Mel. I was shocked when I realized it was coming from a deeper place and I was trying to find comfort in holding onto memories. She went on to describe how she wasnt actually present in these memories, but was simply taking the pictures and hoarding them on her phone.

Difficulty discarding digital items arises from the attachment to the content, explain Lokuge and Dedera. Even though we think that deleting a document or an image is a minor thing, what happens is that people attach value to this digital content. It may be due to personal reasons, professional reasons or simply considering the aesthetic value of the digital content.

Yet the full extent of our digital clutter has farther reaching implications than just our inboxes or camera rolls. It may come as a surprise to some that the cloud isnt an infinite storage center in the sky, but anthropologist Steven Gonzalez Monserrate has seen up close the material infrastructure that makes our digital economy and lives possible. Massive buildings filled with hard drives that have to be running at all times to allow users 24/7 access to their data. The cloud of the digital realm is also material, with switches, lights, HVAC, and other special equipment and emergency power banksas well as a growing environmental footprint.

Not only is it about the electricity that they consume, which is immense, but also the carbon footprint that follows that, Gonzalez explained. To put that into perspective, data centers, which are accountable for 2.5% of all human-induced carbon dioxide, have a larger carbon footprint than the aviation industry, which only accounts for 2.1%. A single data center can consume the equivalent electricity of 50,000 homes. At 200 terawatt hours (TWh) annually, data centers collectively use more energy than some nation-states. And the cost of those duplicate pictures cluttering up your camera roll? 355,000 tonnes of CO2 every year according to The Institution of Engineering and Technology.

However, Gonzalez notes that not everything we do digitally has the same metabolic weight. Things like artificial intelligence, cryptocurrency miningthose activities are computationally very intensive so they use something like quadruple the amount of electricity than normal kinds of computing or basic storage he said.

Gonzalez also encourages a holistic approach to the growing issue of data storage. There are additional ecological factors and that is water-based cooling for these IT systems, he said, adding that data centers use billions of gallons of water a day to keep cool. The use of these water resources is in direct competition with local farmers.

Then there is the issue of electronic waste. These data centers have finite life spans of about two to three years, said Gonzalez. Youre also cycling through a lot of computing equipment which is made out of rare metals like cobalt, vanadium, and lithiumand the mining conditions in which theyre produced are absolutely horrific from a human rights standpoint.

With that in mind, will clearing out your digital clutter make a difference? Gonzalez maintained that the larger issues of data storage are structural and regulatory. I think most of the onus is on them because it is possible to have a cloud that is more metabolically sustainable for our planet. I just think there hasnt been that huge concerted regulatory push at the UN level and at the level of governments, to enforce these kinds of climate standards, he said.

Its so easy to think of the cloud as this global singular thing, Gonzalez added. And it is this kind of diffuse thing that makes it hard to pinpoint where it starts and where it ends. But its also very local. There is a data center somewhere where you live probably, you might just not know its there.

For Mel, starting again with a new phone free from the digital clutter made her feel like a new person. Recognizing her digital hoarding has also allowed Mel to connect and empathize with her father who has hoarded throughout his life. A lot of people will think that [physical] hoarding is crazy, she said. And then they sit down on their phones and realise Oh, wow, Im a hoarder as well.

Continue reading here:
The New Generation of Digital Hoarders Are Harming the Planet - Atmos Magazine