When TikTok was banned, I felt sad at first.
But there was something about the choice of deleting TikTok being made by someone else that brought a sense of peace. I was actually relieved to have one less app, one less data-creating monster and one less platform to get anxious over losing. “I’m never using TikTok again!” I thought to myself. That was until 12 hours later when TikTok was brought back to life, and suddenly, there I was, scrolling, posting and complaining on the very app I swore to ditch.
It’s not the first time I’ve come close to getting off the very same platforms I find myself devoting 4+ hours of screen time to each day. Because leaving an app doesn’t just mean losing something to scroll, it means losing years of saved memes, recipes, photos, messages and unexpectedly viral posts. And if we’re being honest, most of us aren’t willing to let that go.
All of this led me to ask myself: am I a digital hoarder?
Digital hoarding was introduced in 2015 as a subtype of hoarding disorder after researchers studied a man’s strong reluctance to delete any of the thousands of photos he took each week. A 2022 study found confirming evidence that there is an association between digital hoarding and anxiety. Now, for a particularly anxious generation who have spent almost their entire lives using technology, maintaining a healthy amount of saved data seems like a losing battle. Especially when the average person is creating approximately 15.87 terabytes of data every day.
I started questioning if I’m a digital hoarder when I saw everyone scrambling to collect their TikTok data as the app's death sentence quickly approached. Tutorials on how to mass download your original content filled my feed.
It reminded me of the time in high school when my best friend and I emailed Snapchat support with a desperate plea to revive our 700+ day Snapchat streak, as if our friendship depended on it. It’s the same mentality behind why I’ll never simply delete something on Instagram, I’ll always archive it. Not because I think I’ll ever make my sunset pic from 2015 visible again, but because I’m terrified that deleting it might mean deleting any proof that my 13-year-old self existed.
Then I was reminded by all the times I’ve gone through my eight-year-old Facebook Messenger conversations with my high school boyfriend when I’ve needed a very specific laugh. Because among the decade old “like for a rate” Facebook posts and out-of-commission Instagram finstas, it also happens to be one of my go-to places for some much needed nostalgia from simpler times.
I’ll never choose to automatically delete texts after 30 days, because sometimes I read old fights and group chat gossip sessions on nights that I can't fall asleep because it makes me feel closer to the friends and family I now live 10,000 miles away from. And I’ll always buy more storage if I ever get the notification that my iCloud is full, rather than getting rid of anything to clear up space. Because yes, yes I do need 12 different versions of the same photo of my 11-year-old dog and would bawl my eyes out if any of them were lost.
For younger generations, digital memories are clung to in the same way that other generations held onto love notes, letters and photo albums. Even if it may mean taking up all the family iCloud storage and having an overwhelming amount of data for the rest of our lives, we keep old selfies, outdated screenshots and forgotten texts as if they're the contents of a digital shoebox.
