If a picture is worth a thousand words, then our smartphones are equipped to turn us into novelists within minutes. The average American currently has 582 photos saved on their cell phone, plus 13 unused phone apps, 83 bookmarked websites, 21 desktop icons and 210 gigabytes of cloud storage.

Digital hoarding is a sneaky problem—it’s like physical hoarding, but because most of it takes place in the virtual ether, it’s difficult to quantify until we start receiving cloud storage upgrade alerts or we’re told we’re running out of space on our phones while we’re trying to take a photograph. 

Amassing emails, bookmarking webpages, keeping duplicate files, maintaining text messages that date back years and taking an exorbitant number of photographs are all signs of digital hoarding. 

Sound like you? It’s most of us. Our cloud systems have essentially become cyber junk drawers. When a new photo is just the press of a thumb away, an email can be used as a receipt and most of our communication takes place via text, it’s difficult to choose a detailed digital culling over the siren song of a simple storage upgrade. But how do we navigate all this stuff—and what does the device clutter do to our stress levels, not to mention our memories? 

Technology has adapted to mitigate our data deluge. Phone and computer operating systems have installed keyword search functions for emails and text messages, and intelligent curation on smartphones arranges our best shots and alerts us to notable memories from our photo library. The demand for personal photo organizers is booming, and the work can also be offloaded onto any number of specialized apps.

Even if we’re comfortable with technology or with strangers cherry-picking our most cherished digital souvenirs, the very act of taking too many pictures in order to remember a moment could be altering our ability to be in or to even recall the moment. Reliance on technology to document our lives—known as cognitive offloading—has been shown to distract us and change the way we remember experiences, because we’re not truly paying attention. What we’re left with are beautiful but hollow images lacking in emotional connection. 

The pendulum swings both ways, though—when was the last time you memorized a phone number, wrote on a paper calendar or read a physical map? Smartphones can provide helpful cognitive shortcuts. Intentional photo taking can enhance enjoyment and leave behind cherished keepsakes for later generations. It’s now up to us to draw the line at what in our lives is remembered by our physical versus virtual brains. Perhaps the phrase should be altered, for future reference: A thousand pictures are worth a digital legacy.