Should You Organise your Digital Life? An Introduction
Lately, my attention has shifted towards how we can purposefully declutter our digital lives. I am fully aware of the benefits that stem from maintaining a tidy and organised physical environment however I am increasingly drawn to the mess of our digital world. I support clients in their mission to tidy their physical items and they make significant progress. After finishing the sentimental category, clients start to enjoy their home sanctuary they have worked so hard to create. But I am left with an uneasy feeling that there’s more to tackle. I’ve realised that the ‘more’ is our digital mess. Our digital footprint. Our understanding that because it’s digital content, there’s infinite space in the digital realm and therefore no need to tackle it in the same way we would approach our physical items. But I think this is untrue. Digital clutter is still clutter. It still is a weight on our shoulders that can impact our mental wellbeing.
I have two intentions in my focus on offering you advice on how to declutter our digital worlds:
For us to consider how our digital usage may be having a negative impact our mental wellbeing and guidance on how to address this effectively.
For us to become more educated and mindful about how our digital consumption is having a harmful impact on the environment.
The environmental impact of data storage is more than you think — and it’s only getting worse…
Yes, we can store our accumulating volume of digital clutter in innocent sounding solutions like ‘the cloud’ but the truth is, when we store our tens of thousands of photographs and videos, clutter up our desktops, online drives and social platforms, we’re not only paying more money for this ‘solution’ in the same way we would pay for a storage unit to store all that unnecessary from our home, we’re actually harming the environment.
We’re all aware of the things that undoubtedly have a negative impact on the environment, like single use plastics and vehicle emissions but most of us have no idea how much our data can be harmful too. I know I didn’t when I first starting researching the impact of digital clutter. And when you’re trying to calculate your carbon footprint, the environmental impact of data storage is probably something you're leaving out.
Data centers contribute to greenhouse gas emissions
“All of the shows and movies you stream, your important documents that you need access to everywhere, all of the information that you’ve uploaded to social media sties — it may take up little or no space on your devices, but all of that data has to go somewhere. That somewhere is typically data centres, massive buildings occupied by nothing but row after row of computer servers that are running nonstop to make sure that when you need to retrieve a photo stored in the cloud, you’ll be able to get to it right away.”
Examples of data centres located in Quincy, Washington
Let’s look into ‘The cloud’; although it sounds like something innocent, it’s actually a data centre (a massive building) using up an incredible amount of energy to store the items you’ve run out of space for on your phone or desktop. A 2015 report found that data centres and their massive energy consumption are responsible for about 2 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, putting them on par with the aviation industry. There are now hundreds of thousands of data centres around the world, storing everything from viral videos to doctors' notes and even bank account details. Many of them run on electricity generated by burning fossil fuels. For more information, I’d highly recommend watching the five minute BBC feature Dirty streaming: The internet's big secret.
What can we do?
I understand at times people can feel overwhelmed when they’re trying to tackle their digital clutter. They may also question if their effort to declutter their digital life will actually make a difference. The truth is, if we can take a closer look at what is already there in terms of our data storage and consumption, and change our habits as a result of this effort, we can start to change our behaviour. Just by understanding that digital data storage is not infinite if the more we store, the more we can have a detrimental impact, we’ve made a start. We can make a difference.
Over the next few months, in a series of blog posts, I will be sharing constructive advice on how we can reduce our digital footprint and create habits that will make us more mindful in our digital usage.
First steps:
Following this piece, I’d like you to take an inventory of your technological world. Consider:
The content of your phone: apps, messaging services, photos and file storage
Email accounts
The content of your computer, laptop, iPad & other digital devices
Websites you use to upload data
Social media (how many accounts you have and whether you use these platforms to store digital content like photos and videos)
Streaming platforms like Netflix or Amazon Prime Video
Video Games
Your choice of cloud storage service
When we consider the above, your digital footprint becomes much more than we initially think. But fear not, if you’re willing to commit, I can help you to live a more minimal and sustainable digital life…