Why Your Digital Life Feels Messy (And What to Do About It) | HackerNoon

When the internet was in its infancy, it seemed perfect. You could connect with friends. Learn new information. Make weird dolls on Angelcity-hosted pages. But then, like all sweet things left out in the sun, it started to rot.

The new information became overwhelming. The connection with friends turned into cold emails from brands you’ve never heard of. And the dolls have been buried along with our optimism.

Now it’s just an endless avalanche of noise. Our emails are packed with newsletters we don’t want. The notification pings interrupt our limited chats with friends. And our data is being sold like it’s on clearance at Target.

When we started Yorba, there was no good way to quiet the noise. You could either use a service like Unroll.me (and risk having your data sold again), or you could manually handle your inbox, subscriptions, and account deletions.

Now that we’ve helped over 4000 people make their lives on the internet less annoying, we dug into the numbers to expose the issue (and point out how to fit back).

Why Your Inbox Feels Like A Dumpster You Can’t Empty

If you’ve ever looked at the onslaught of random newsletters you get in your inbox, you’re not alone. You already know that companies spend tons of money to spam our inboxes with the hopes that we might purchase their product. But people only open 1 in 4 newsletters they receive. And they receive a lot:

On average, Yorba members are on 148 mailing lists each. That equals:

This adds up to a whole lot of time: 5 hours yearly to manage SPAM, assuming you spend as little as 3 seconds on each email.

Ever wondered which companies clog your inbox the most? We were, so we checked the stats:

Can you do something about it? Yep. Mass unsubscribe from emails you get and think twice before opting into “updates” and “exclusive deals” you’ll never read.

Why Deleting Old Accounts Might Be The Smartest Thing You Do This Week

Each of us has signed up (or got signed up) for hundreds of accounts over the years. And they don’t disappear when we stop using them. They sit there, holding onto your data, waiting to get hacked.

Yorba members have, on average, 246 accounts (see the most popular ones below). And 1 in every 19 of those has been breached

Most people don’t even remember half the services they signed up for. But companies don’t forget—they’re still collecting, storing, and (sometimes) selling your data.

If you’re tired of this, there’s a quick solution.

To get started, find and delete old accounts. Then (duh) set unique passwords and enable 2FA. But to get a little deeper, you can manage your privacy settings and check if your data was caught in a data breach. We have some more ideas in our State of Clutter report.

Are You Paying For Subscriptions You Forgot About? Probably

Subscription-based services love your forgetfulness. And they are good at exploiting it: FTC found out that nearly 76% of websites offering subscriptions use at least one dark pattern.

So it’s no surprise that 7 out of 10 people have been billed for a subscription they had forgotten about. A good subscriptions tracker can help you avoid these extra charges. If you want to go low-fi, just cancel subscriptions as soon as you sign up. But the problem isn’t just about potential breaches–these old subscriptions are killing your bank account.

On average, Yorba members spend $254.31 on subscriptions monthly (for Apple, Prime, AT&T subscriptions, and beyond)

The Time Is Now

It seems impossible to start organizing all this chaos, but trust us: it’s worth it. Studies show that being overwhelmed by digital noise can mess with your focus, raise anxiety, and cost you money without you realizing it.

Look, you don’t need studies to explain why this is a problem. Just see how your mood shifts after dealing with your inbox. Though, to be fair, research does show that days with the highest email volumes resulted in approximately 50% higher evening cortisol levels compared to days with the lowest volumes.

So if you were waiting for a sign: here it is. Take a few minutes to make the internet way less annoying: cancel those old accounts, check your subscriptions, and mass unsubscribe. And to make things easier, use code NOONHACK25 for 25% off Yorba Premium!