I’ve been having a declutter of the virtual style. The sheer number of unsolicited advertising/newsletter/offer emails and spam that lands in my inbox each day has reached such epic proportions that I’ve lost track of how long I spend automatically deleting them, and I’ve declared war on them instead.

This is quite therapeutic and satisfying, but can bring out the Catholic guilt. About a week ago, instead of automatically deleting emails from the likes of Clarks (because I ordered a pair of shoes online ONCE) and Catalink (because I may have perused how to get to the Isle of Wight five years ago) I started opening them up, scrolling down and clicking ‘unsubscribe’.

It takes just seconds and is so pleasurable I’ve even found myself opening up emails from people I actually don’t mind targeting me with offers, like Jojo Maman Bebe and Cath Kidston, hovering over the ‘unsubscribe’ like I’ve got some kind of ‘clicking’ habit.

The only thing is there are instances when it’s not a simple click and the constant barrage of emails are gone: they want to know why you want to unsubscribe. There are usually a list of options, and in some cases I’ve felt so guilty (Get Lenses.co.uk) I’ve found myself ticking the ‘no longer relevant to me’ box because I don’t want to tell them the truth (that I’ve actually started buying lenses from Specsavers).

So I’ve spent more time than I care to admit feeling disloyal to a computer. A computer! Give me strength…