 We're now going to look at a very interesting phenomenon. It is called cyber hoarding. Let's first see what hoarding is. Hoding is a behavior almost borderline a mental health condition where individuals can have an excessive acquisition of goods and they have a major difficulty in getting rid of those goods especially the ones they do not need. Now in our own day-to-day lives, individual lives, we must know hoarders. It includes people who are holding on to things which are of no value to them but they're holding on to those let's say books from childhood or they're holding on to goods from many many years ago which is of absolutely no value to them. It is cluttering their house. It is actually causing a certain disturbance but they're unable to let it go. Then we must know a friend or a colleague who is an excessive shopper. They buy a lot of clothes, a lot of shoes, a lot of things, stationery items perhaps. People can have varied hobbies and varied things that they actually like to shop and they buy excessive amounts and then even though that item is of no good to them or is of no use to them, they still cannot part from that item and they still just want to keep them and contain them and have them with them. We also at times know family members that we are requesting them and telling them to let go of some of the things, to give away some of the things that they do not need or to distribute some of the things which are of no good use to them. However, they're absolutely incapable or are unable to let go of those possessions or those goods even though they're not using them and even though those things are of no immediate or future benefit to them and at times just collecting them or keeping them is actually causing problems in their life. For instance, if they're taking up a lot of space or they're actually preventing the useful things from being placed where they should be placed but people can just, they're sometimes incapable of letting go of those goods or things. This is a hoarding phenomena and at times we even joke with our loved ones that let's say that person is a very big hoarder would just keep on to let's say the shop goods forever and ever. However, this hoarding behavior is also almost like a mental health disease where we ourselves might be hoarding without even knowing it. So, this hoarding behavior is a kind of a mental health disease where we are just unable to let go or we're incapable of getting rid of goods which are of no use to us. So, as the cyber world is, it has borrowed all or maybe not all then a lot of phenomenon from the real world. Similarly, we have just like how individuals have a hoarding behavior. In the cyber world also we have individuals exhibiting cyber-holding. That means that there is an excessive acquisition and storage of digital data, emails, pictures and other digital stuff. Now, there are several disadvantages of digital hoarding. It prevents individuals and as a result it prevents organizations from effectively organizing and managing digital information. You know and then if we are not effectively organizing and managing digital information, we can be taking a toll on the resources of the organization and we can be becoming a problem for sustainability as well as we would be contributing to a disorganized digital environment which can actually be damaging to others associated with the organization or those who are part of the organization. Digital hoarders, they involve as I told you that they're involved in excessive accumulation and retention of digital files or content. They have a difficulty in deleting or organizing digital information. Now, why are they doing so? They're doing so because digital hoarders often fear losing important data or they have a certain attachment to the digital possessions. Digital hoarding can occur across platforms like computers, smartphones, email accounts, cloud storage and social media. It can, as I said earlier, negatively impact productivity and especially it can cause a digital disorganization. Digital hoarding can then further have a negative impact on the digital well-being and the biggest problem being that it can cause a digital clutter which then has a direct impact on organization and the individual's productivity. So what we need to do is that we need to adopt habits and we need to, you know, so that, you know, we are able to effectively prevent cyber holding. One of the first things to do is that we need to regularly digitally declutter. Now, this is something for which also, again, we have to schedule a certain time, if not on a daily basis, then at least on a weekly basis where amongst all the data or all the information that we are receiving on a daily basis, we're able to, you know, really pick and say, okay, this is the important one. This is something that I need to, you know, have and then organize it in its proper files with proper names and recognize that, okay, this particular information is super fluid or is merely a copy of that information which I have already properly archived and this is something I need to delete and let go off. Then organizations need to have effective organizational systems where, you know, digital holding does not start to build in because if we have, you know, if organizations do not have effective organizational systems where important data or useful data can be selected from this gigantic pool of information, the documents, the pictures, the videos, if the important one cannot be filtered and stored properly and the superfluous or irrelevant one cannot be timely discarded, it can lead to a lot of wastage inside the organization. I will, you know, before ending digital holding, give one or two very day-to-day examples. For instance, ever since we were able to make photographs using our mobile phone or a smartphone, earlier, several years ago, you know, the whole family used to gather up, dress up very nice, they smile for that one photograph which was taken through an analog camera and then that one photograph which took a lot of effort to develop anyway was always kept as a treasured memory. However, now, with the presence of these smartphones and cell phones, we're able to capture the same scene with exactly the same expressions, with exactly the same information and we would have made a hundred copies of it. You know, click ten photographs of exactly the same scene. Now, and then what happens is that individuals find it difficult to even delete, let's say you have, you know, taken ten photographs of exactly the same scene, having exactly the same information. Digital hoarder, a typical digital hoarder will have difficulty in saying, okay, these are just ten replicas of the same thing. I can just retain one and immediately discard the other nine. You know, and that's just one example where you may have seen a friend going through this. So, now what it can do, result is it can lead to wastage of time. It definitely leads to a wastage of storage and resources. So, at an individual level and then naturally at an organizational level, this is one example where we need to identify that, you know, this is the important information or this is the bare minimum information that we can keep and store and this is the superfluous information and we need to let go of it. So, in a nutshell, you know, if we let go of digital hoarding, we're able to declutter, we're able to better organize our systems, it will not just improve our productivity, it will improve our organization's productivity. Another thing which I'm very tempted to share over here is that in order to, you know, prevent clutter or in order to prevent disorganization, it is very important to give you files, to give you photographs, meaningful descriptive names and then store them in their proper folders. As a teacher, I often get assignments from students, let's say, that I would have twenty different students sending me an assignment and each one of them has named it assignment. And then, at times I would specifically give out an instruction that please give your assignment a meaningful name so that I'm able to identify that, okay, look, this is from Shahnaz Banu, look, this is from Ali Nasir, you know. These are two individuals who are submitting an assignment and if it is only that they have effectively named that file, that assignment that they're submitting, let's say, just as an example, it could be Shahnaz Banu underscore, let's say the assignment one is on an MRI machine, Shahnaz Banu underscore MRI assignment one, you know. That is just one example of giving it an effective name and as a teacher when I've received it, it is much easier for me, you know, to organize them and able to, you know, tell that which file is, let's say, you know, important and needs to be stored and which ones are superfluous and needs to be discarded. So, you know, these are just, again, digital hoarding comes under the bigger umbrella of digital ethics and these are just some examples where having good digital ethics, having good practices can take us and our organization a long way.