I just deleted thousands of old photos, here's why you should do the same

I have a hard time letting go of stuff, virtual or physical. Sometimes, it's because of the voice in my head telling me that I might need that thing one day – which is why I have a sizeable bag of assorted cables in my basement. Or it could be because of the item in question holds a sentimental value – a postcard, for instance, or an old, worn-out piece of clothing given to me by a special someone. And I'm pretty sure I still have my save files for Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 on an old hard drive.

So let's just say that Marie Kondo won't be proud of me. Although I have been making progress in what looks like the right direction – all of my 58 T-shirts are neatly folded following the KonMari method! But in all seriousness, I have been trying to tidy up my life by getting rid of things that no longer spark joy. And something I recently got rid of was a whole bunch of old digital photos – literally thousands of pictures many of which I had forgotten about.

Why do we take photos at all?

Cleaning up my photo archive wasn't just an action or a process. In a way, it was a ritual, as lame as this may sound.

And it got me thinking.

I remember a time when I'd browse through old photos for the fun of it, either by myself or with a bunch of friends, and we'd laugh at how silly we looked a year ago at this party or that weekend trip. People today don't really look at old photos, do they? Not unless Facebook pops up to remind them what they had for lunch on that day 5 years ago.

And it's probably because people take photos for different reasons now. Once, we took pictures to document events, to store happy memories in a more tangible form that's easily accessible in the future. And we did it for our own enjoyment. Today, we take pictures so that we and the events we're involved in are seen by others; so that we can impress other people – people we may not necessarily like or know in person. We shoot, share, and count the Likes we get. Thus, the photo fulfills its purpose and is then easily forgotten. And it feels like we take more pictures than ever, but they're of much lesser value to us.

The great purge: cleaning up my photo library

Going through my photos felt like the old times. It brought back memories – of people, of events, of places I have been to. But it took quite some time – both because of the sheer number of pictures I have taken since 2003, when I first got one of them newfangled digital cameras, and because my cloud backup service was struggling to generate the thumbnails for the 50,000+ images.

I started the purge by going through my oldest photos first. I was amazed by how bad these photos looked now and how great I thought they looked back in 2003 – in all their 1.3MP glory. But then again, their sentimental value was more important than their actual quality. Photos that brought back happy memories I saved and sorted in albums. Those that didn't went straight to the Trash folder.