Zero inbox, thousand bookmarks, and a different kind of FOMO.
The real challenge behind online decluttering.
‘Zero inbox’ has recently become a concept. Productivity advocates started to spread the word about the benefits of a clear and organized inbox and its contribution to more focus during work. It does make sense. Facing a never-ending list of emails screaming for your attention can be pretty overwhelming, to the point you end up ignoring the non-urgent messages and move on to more important tasks.
I’ve mastered the art of ‘zero inbox’ before it was even a thing. The inboxes of my active email accounts look satisfyingly neat, with folders, categories, and without a single unread email. I delete all my useless mail the moment I see it, and I unsubscribe from mailing lists quite frequently. It’s easy for me to keep this part of my online space tidy. I cannot say the same about my bookmarks.
As I write this, I have 77 bookmarks on my computer browser, 7 open tabs on my mobile browser, 54 saved articles on Reddit, 481 saved items from Facebook (my jaw dropped when I came across this one), 116 articles on Pocket, 156 articles on Medium. I won’t even get started on how many ebooks I have just hanging around on my Kindle, and watch/to read lists are also not included.
All these saved items consist of not only articles but also videos to watch later, blogs to read later, podcasts to listen to later, interesting discussions to peek on later. Keyword: later.
When I started to realize how many stuff I was accumulating on these platforms, I actually put some effort into sorting it out. I would spend a couple of hours by the fireplace after dinner on Facebook, placing these items under categories — poetry, books, movies, articles, cute, memes, art, jobs and gigs, satisfying videos, etc. There was so much stuff I had to use different filters just to make the task a bit easier. I selected ‘videos’ and started placing them under their category, then ‘photos’, then ‘links’, and so on. Needless to say, I ended up un-saving a lot, most of those so outdated I wasn’t even interested in the topic anymore. I started to find a bit of order in this huge mess of online data. These days, when I save stuff, I’m saving it in its own folder. Just like assigning a place in your wardrobe for your different type of clothes, I managed to build a virtual closet with drawers of all kinds.
The funny thing about owning a lot of stuff is that you not only forget you have most of it when you have to actually pick something out, but you also waste a lot more time than necessary to make a decision. People with lots of clothes are the ones who struggle the most while choosing an outfit. Netflix is a very good example of this: you log in, spend around 20 minutes just scrolling through the titles, get a crushing amount of options, end up turning off the TV and going to sleep because you can’t decide and you are too frustrated to go for another round.
So, why do we do this?
Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) is my theory. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, FOMO “is a worried feeling that you may miss exciting events that other people are going to, especially caused by things you see on social media.” Even though this concept applies mostly to social events, I believe we all suffer from this on a deeper level.
FOMO is a huge, yet silent, ever-growing condition. People rely on refreshes, updates, follow buttons, likes and shares to keep the beast calm. Offline methods such as gossip work too. Ultimately, as social creatures, we want to have an update on the general state of things, whether this is on a more small circle — what your friends and family are up to — , or on a more larger scale— what is going on in the world, checking the news, what event are you going to attend next.
Before the Internet and social media, people used offline tools to gather this information. The limited sources of information kept us disciplined, more selective, and generally less stressed out about what we don’t know. People piled up stuff nevertheless, from papers to brand new encyclopedias that no one in the house had ever or would ever read, magazine subscriptions and VHS tapes. However, getting information out in the world was limited by the obligation of a physical format, which had some kind of financial cost to the consumer. Unless you had a lot of money to spend on stuff you would likely never pay attention to, people had to choose and limit their interests and sources.
Not a long time has passed by since this, and today humanity has the power of knowledge at the distance of a click. So we click. And click. And click. We feed our FOMO with all kinds of content, hoping it will stay put until the next interesting-enough-to-save, yet not-interesting-enough-for-me-to-give-it-my-attention-at-the-moment topic. And this is how I ended up with hundreds of unopened online scrap.
I started noticing this accumulating condition whenever I traveled. On flight-mode, your smartphone gets so limited you end up considering just organizing your photos to help with the boredom. I usually open either the Medium or Pocket app and embrace the Netflix condition on a different platform. I didn’t use to mind it much. I’m so used to having so many saved items, I just go along with it.
For the last couple of months, I’ve been reading a lot while at the gym. I place my cellphone on the treadmill and go through the most recent articles while exercising. A few days ago, this actually started to slightly bother me. I realized I either start reading older articles, or I will eventually just keep on accumulating more. I decided I wouldn’t save any more articles on Medium until I’ve cleared my reading list. Same goes with Pocket. When I logged in today, even before thinking about writing this, I failed and saved one more. Just the one, I thought to myself, and I will read it in the next few days.
Then I asked the same question again: Why?
If I logged out of the internet for a month, I would probably never come across most of the stuff I save every week. I would never know what I was missing out, and I would never need it. Just like I don’t need any of it now.
FOMO could only be completely fulfilled if you actually decided to act upon it and attend every single event, read every single article, watch every single video. And we all know this is impossible. Once again, I found myself questioning this concept: is the thing we are so afraid of missing out really that worth it?
The main reason a lot of people keep their social media is because they feel it is a way of communicating with their friends, to know what’s up with a family member that lives far away, maybe find an old childhood friend every now and then. However, most of these interactions are not even words, but likes and reactions, a comment on a picture, a tag in a post. How did we get tricked into the idea that this is what caring about someone looks like? We got lazy with our human interactions, and to make up for all the seemingly comfort of effortlessness, we got a huge shot of anxiety instead.
The reason why I have so many hour’s worth of unconsumed content saved is still a bit unknown to me. I base off my decisions on a few words from the article’s title, or a small peek at the video, or an interesting opinion from a comment on a Facebook group regarding a movie that’s on my watchlist for at least three years and that I will probably not watch any time soon.
My question shifted from its original: why is it so hard for me to let go of all this?
I realized I am attached to online content just as much as people get attached to stuff and end up as accumulators: I might need this some day.
We are feeding a beast that will only keep on coming back for more, more, and more. We have created an ongoing circle of feeding this, whether by reacting or by contributing to the FOMO of those around us. Not only you don’t want to miss what other people are doing, but you also don’t want them to miss what’s up with you. So you post, you share, you text, you keep on helping these digital networks grow, you don’t want to be left out, you don’t want to be forgotten.
This feeling is so deeply rooted in our personalities, we cannot completely erase it, just like we are not willing to let go of that cute picture of a dog just because you might want to show it to someone else later. We don’t want to lose it, we don’t want to give it up, or simply allow it to be forever lost in the vast universe of the internet. But it is there, and you can find it if you put in the effort.
I, for myself, will probably try to find new ways of slowly getting my numbers back to zero. The only actual solution to my problem would be to completely delete all my saves and accept that there will never be enough time to consume every interesting thing that crosses my digital path.
The conclusion of my post was written, and as I was about to hit the publish button, I realized it didn’t make any sense. I went back to Facebook and deleted all my collections and saves. I left 9 articles on Pocket, 41 on Medium, 3 bookmarks, 0 tabs opened, 0 saves on Reddit. I plan on reading all those 50 articles during this month. Save buttons are great. They allow you to come back to something you didn’t have the time to before. However, they are also traps and a door to the closet in your home where you keep the stuff you don’t need, but also don’t want to throw away. It’s okay to have this, as long as you go in that room and clean up a bit every now and then.
Fear of Missing Out is just an illusion, but a very tricky one. I will continue to feed the beast by posting instead of waiting for someone to genuinely ask. I guess I do want a place in this digital world. At least for now. I will not, however, let it clog up my small digital room anymore.
