Development of a digital photo hoarding scale: A research with undergraduate students

Abstract

This study focuses on hoarding of digital assets. Today people’s ownership of digital assets can be uncontrolled and the measurement tool designed in the study is expected to be useful for young people, health care organizations, businesses (smartphone firms etc.) and research-ers. In the study, previous researches on hoarding, in particular hoarding of digital assets are reviewed. We then describe the process by which we developed our digital photograph hoarding scale (DPHS): development of scale items, evaluation of items, testing of a preliminary version, conducting validity and reliability analyses and analysis of scale scores. As a result, sub-dimensions of the digital photograph hoarding are identified as: problems caused by un-controlled acquisition of photographs; problems caused by clutter; uncontrolled clutter of photographs; failure to dispose of photographs and related problems; uncontrolled taking of photographs accompanied by a constant desire to do so. It is seen that people with high DPHS scores also have higher scores on measures of photographing and photograph examination. Finally, the limitations of the research are discussed and suggestions for the future researches are offered.

Keywords

• hoarding
• digital hoarding
• hoarding of digital photo
• addiction
• consumer