Abstract:
Humans behaviour is becoming digitalised and dematerialised due to a deeper engagement with internet and digital devices. A bondless and digital world created by advanced technology provides an enormous space for humans’ personal and social activities. Under this circumstance, some humans’ behaviours present unique features. A typical example is hoarding. This study firstly reviews previous hoarding and compulsive hoarding research, analyses the definition of hoarding and compulsive hoarding, and summarises different assessments of hoarding. Next, a working definition of cyber hoarding is proposed after implementing five interviews and analysing key messages. After that, cyber hoarding construct is developed by using Exploratory Factor Analysis. In addition, Multiple Linear Regression is applied to investigate the relations between antecedences and consequences of cyber hoarding. The research finds that cyber hoarding has some similarities with traditional hoarding. ‘Acquisition’ and ‘failure to discard’ as the components of cyber hoarding have similar functions compared with traditional hoarding. The findings indicate that emotional attachment is the main reason driving cyber hoarding behaviour, and ‘failure to discard’ mainly affect how people perceive clutter and the impairment. Overall, the findings from this research provide both theoretical and practical implications for behavioural research, digital marketing, and user experience designers.
