Time for De-cluttering: Digital clutter scaling for individuals and enterprises

The clutter of files can crash a PC and create psychological stress for individuals and cyber-security risks for enterprises. Therefore, managing digital data has become a significant issue for individuals and organizations. Although there are several articles and some research on individuals’ digital hoarding and cluttering habits, there are limited numbers of studies that associate these behaviors with people’s business lives. To the best of our knowledge, no study has been found that measures and correlates individuals’ digital clutter behaviors and businesses’ digital clutter levels. This study defines digital hoarding as the acquisition of and failure to discard digital clutter and explores it as an issue. This study’s main objective is to raise awareness about digital clutter and reveal the importance and potential risks of this concept for firms and employees. The research also aims to introduce a scale related to digital clutter into the literature and present a structure for measuring the digital clutter levels of individuals and enterprises and reveal the relationship among the factors. The digital clutter status of both individuals and enterprises was derived from 600 responses. This research reveals that those at the lower level of the organizational hierarchy, people with a high level of education, young people, and those with multiple social media accounts are more prone to digital hoarding behavior. The enterprise-related analyzes reveal that 6 to 10-year-old businesses and small businesses were more vulnerable to digital clutter. The study reveals that as firms transform digitally, they also transform their employees, and even if this is not enough to make the 50 and above age group superior, it still allows them to exceed expectations. This finding strengthens the estimation that the data management policies of elder firms may be interiorized by individuals, increase their awareness and prevent digital hoarding.