Are You A Tech Hoarder?

It’s a question worth asking yourself for more than a couple of reasons…

Let me ask you a question, and please — answer honestly in the comments. How many of you have at least a big box, a couple of drawers, half an attic or garage full of tech you never quite managed to get yourself to sell, donate or recycle? Reasons don’t really matter because I’m certain if you still have them, there is one, even if it’s as simple “I just never got to it.” But that’s precisely what I want to explore in this piece. Why we keep keeping stuff, why we probably shouldn’t and what good, actionable solutions we have for avoiding tech hoarding.

The never-ending excuses…

Of which there are plenty, and some very creative. I’ll touch upon a few common ones, but I am sure some of ye can come up with a few more that I couldn’t think of. Now, don’t get me wrong, none of these excuses are bad per se, but when you think of it, in the grand scheme of things, they make very little sense.

• The emotional connection. You got a fake Atari from your folks when you were 8, and that started it all. Since you can’t get yourself to get rid of that, regardless of its zero value — being a fake and all — you feel just as emotionally connected to every cable, plug, adaptor, PC, phone, laptop, keyboards, and mice you got since. Everything is somehow connected to that original fake Atari. Your parents are long gone, this is what you have now, half a garage full of yellowed, smelly, popped capacitors, leaky batteries, stacks of laptops some of which are heavier than today’s desktops. It’s all a big emotional baggage. I am no psychologist, but maybe keep that original fake Atari, frame it, and get rid of the rest? You cannot possibly be connected emotionally to every single electronic gadget you own. It’s not healthy.
• The nerd excuse. This I can identify with, though I am not a tough case. I do sell about 50% of my gadgets; however, I could sell a lot more. Currently, I’m sitting on four MacBooks, when technically I only need one, maybe a second one for backup. This whole backup thing is an old problem of mine, where I like to know I am never without a functioning computer. But us, tech nerds, we do keep stuff around for longer than we should simply because it’s tech, and the mere ownership of it gives us enormous satisfaction. It’s not sustainable, though. Not financially, not environmentally, not in any kind of way in a world where there is plenty of new tech every year to get excited about.

• You never got to it. I will admit that time doesn’t grow on trees and is very limited, but so is space. You keep buying new stuff, forgetting about the old gadgets, they end up in yet another pile of “I’ll get to it later”, but you never really do because you get distracted by new stuff and life in general. The problem is, someone might have actually made good use of it if you just found an hour or so to find it all a new home.
• You might need it down the line. And then, 99% of the time, you never do. Tech evolves, even half your cables are useless now. Chargers? Forget them, everything wants to fast-charge now. The reality of it is, just like in my case with the 15” 2018 Intel MacBook Pro, that there is a high likelihood that I will never need to turn that machine on again.
• Its value will skyrocket. Or it won’t. In fact, it most likely won’t because tech isn’t what it used to be. If you had an Apple One, sure, but owning most of today’s tech in 30 years will be likely valued at $0 because there’s going to be landfills-worth of them around. Be honest with yourself, do a bit of research, and you’ll realise 95% of tech you bought has no chance of ever becoming your luxury highway to retirement.
• You don’t know how to get rid of it all. While it might be a little hard to believe, I can understand that some have no clue what to do with old tech, so they just let it pile up year after year. In fairness, especially in rural areas, this isn’t the worst of excuses. Having said that, many tech-savvy people, even in those areas, should have some idea, so I feel there’s a bit of laziness associated with this excuse.
• There’s an owl in the attic. I threw this one in for fun, but I could see at least a couple of people give this as an excuse. So, there’s an owl in the attic? And then what? It’s not a dragon. I might understand being afraid of spiders, but owls, unless they have hatchlings, and you’re going to do something to those — which you shouldn’t — are less of a threat than you think.

You see, people will find a myriad of reasons to hang on to their electronics. I bet some of you have at least 3–4 old phones in some drawer, a box dedicated to just cables, all tangled up and never to be used again, and every time you purchase something new, the cables go on top of the same pile because well, you already have the few cables you keep using. Sure they’re a couple of years old, but they’re much softer than the new ones, it’s bent just in the right way for you to plug stuff in without even looking.

Oh, and let’s not forget the old MP3 players, perhaps even a couple of iPods you forgot about, next to some cheap ol’ boombox, a record-player with thicker dust on it than a 200 gram record. And of course, the remotes, the classic case of gadgets that never get thrown away!

People likely have more unused tech in their homes than available for sale in the shops at any given time. This needs to end.

So, what do we do?

I think the first step in everything is acknowledging the problem we have. The perhaps less expected angle to all of this, is the fact that while we might have our reasons to keep some things, there are much more valid reasons not to. One has to do a bit of an analysis as to what the value is in keeping something, and what it might be from passing it on in some shape or form. This will, of course, vary from person to person and some might find themselves incentivised by different things than others, but let’s look at a few excellent ones that I used in the past to get rid of some of my tech.

• Making money. The most obvious one. Money, money, money, sweet green dollhairs! You won’t get as rich as Abba claims you might, but tech, up to a point, is still valuable. Sure, that value might literally be 10 bucks for something you paid $500 a few years ago, but let me put it this way: letting it sit in a drawer values $0, and uses space. The $10 alternative is exponentially more than nothing. The thing is, once you start adding up all the items you could, in fact, sell on, you’ll realise you’ve been sitting on a nice pile of cash. In the last three years I have recovered about $1000 from selling some of my old tech. Hey, 1000 bucks is nothing to sneeze at. That’s a new M1 MacBook Air right there! Check your area, you might just have shops that buy older tech. In Ireland, we have this place called CEX, and it’s great for both selling and buying used tech. It smells a bit funky inside, but they pay for my old shite, so who cares! You can also opt to sell it all on eBay, but meh, there are many crooks on that site, and it involves PayPal, which often feels more like a money-laundering business than a payment processor.
• Freeing up space in your home, so you don’t have to do gymnastics every time you cross the room or need something from the garage or attic. Even if you had fantasies of becoming the next Nadia Comaneci, there are better ways to practice than that. Even if it’s just the garage, that’s space you could use much better, or simply create more breathing space for yourself through decluttering. You might even find yourself mentally more relaxed with less stuff around you and your car finally sitting safe inside rather than in the driveway. My friend Raluca, for instance, can get extremely exhausted by clutter. Less of a problem for me, but either way, make space for yourself or for whomever else. It might just inspire you to start something new and get your creative juices flowing. Space can do that too, not just weed!
• Free gifts. You might actually for a change start giving gifts that won’t end up in someone else’s attic. Gifts, especially electronics are often costly, so why get something new, when you can gift your older tech. Now bear in mind, it has to be the right person, not some prima-donna who sees it as a hand-me-down. Feck them! Gift them a one-way ticket to Mars! Seriously, though. If I gifted my Intel MacBook Pro to someone, I think 80% of people would appreciate it a lot and would use the machine for a few more years. But there would be a few nerd acquaintances of mine who would get offended for gifting them a 2018 used machine. The right person will truly enjoy used tech just as much as if it were new.
• The environment. Seriously. You’re going to save lives. There’s your ticket to Heaven, man! All that tech that’s sitting and gathering dust is definitely not helping the environment, so you might find this to be a good reason to recycle. Most shops — at least in Europe — will happily take free of charge any electronics you might have and recycle it for you. Obviously, I cannot guarantee where they really end up, but one can make a safe enough assumption that some of it does actually get recycled into new, better, more power-efficient products. If you choose the rehoming avenue either by selling or gifting, you’re still doing good for the environment as less new stuff needs to be manufactured, which in itself consumes a lot of energy and finite resources.

The obvious bottom line…

Is that we likely have far too much shite we don’t use, and things we don’t use are a waste in some way or another. I keep reminding myself that I don’t actually have to have a backup of literally every gadget I have. I have three older displays that are still in perfect working order that I need to really look into selling. Yes, I keep thinking that one day I’ll sit down and use them to build a Magic Mirror, but come on, we all know I won’t. As cool as a project it would be, I’ll never find the time with everything else I’m doing.

That Intel MacBook Pro must also go. That’s it. Decision made, it must go. I’m being silly for keeping it, and so are you if you keep shite around you don’t ever touch — including your spouse 😆 (just kidding). There is no real reason to. Fine, keep that first Tamagotchi you owned, but that’s it. All the other seven need to go! Find a place to sell them, give them to charity, find some hipster kid who never even heard of them, and just move on from all the unused tech.

Foolishly holding on to every tech we ever bought is objectively the worst decision one can make for themselves and the environment. Declutter today!

Tomorrow you’ll buy more shite anyway… 🤣

Hi there! 👋

Recently, I started a new publication — Bricks n’ Brackets — dedicated to LEGO, tech and coding. It would mean a huge deal to me if you’d follow it, though only do so, if any of those topics pique your interest. You can also read more about why I started it and what my overall goal with it is. You can also join as a writer if you’d like, as long as you submit articles around those three topics. The publication also has a YouTube, Instagram and TikTok channel. Thank you, and may the gods of creativity and success guide your day!

Attila Vago — Software Engineer improving the world one line of code at a time. Cool nerd since forever, writer of codes and blogs. Web accessibility advocate, Lego fan, vinyl record collector. Loves craft beer!