Boxkeepers: is your home a graveyard of gadget boxes?

UK households now spend £10bn a year on gadgets – but why are so many of us reluctant to let go of the packaging?


Last week it struck me that I have too many empty gadget boxes stashed away in the loft. And they quite literally struck me, falling out of the loft onto my head while I was packing up to move house. For a second I envisioned my wife coming upstairs to find me unconscious at the base of the step-ladder, buried beneath PlayStation and Xbox detritus, but fortunately, after several minutes, the landslide ceased.


Speaking to friends and colleagues since then, it's clear that I'm far from alone. From kitchen appliances to smartphones, many of us are carefully storing cardboard boxes, rather than binning them as soon as the gadget has been ripped free of its glossy cage. And then the boxes just sort of hang around, in garages, in lofts, in spare rooms ... gathering dust and patches of mould, and, judging by my own attic, somehow reproducing.


Partly, saving these relics of consumer lust is a practical endeavour. All electrical items these days have a 12-month warranty and we worry that manufacturers will expect faulty goods to be returned in their original boxes.


This isn't necessarily the case: according to Trading Standards, if you're returning a defective product under your consumer rights, as allowed by the Sales of Goods act, you can return items in whatever box you have to hand.


However, if you are returning it under a manufacturer warranty or guarantee you need to abide by the T&Cs which will often insist on the original packaging. In any case, having the proper box is often more handy than trying to scrabble together enough cardboard and bubble wrap to cope with that broken George Foreman 10-portion grill and griddle.


There is also the eBay syndrome. Second-hand gadgets fetch a much better price on the auction site if they come in their original packaging and so cardboard boxes have become important commodities in the modern used goods economy.


We often justify the cost of new gadgets by convincing ourselves that the re-sale value on older models will cover much of the cost – and with new products appearing at a staggering pace, the upgrade cycle on things like smartphones and tablets is accelerating. The boxes soon mount up.


But there is also something much more profound going on. We're living in a digital age, an age of consumer electronics omnipresence. Many of us now process our lives through smartphones, laptops, tablets, games machines and personal video recorders. Our most precious memories have been outsourced to hard drives and SD cards. Gadgets were once status symbols, but they have progressed beyond that – they're so intrinsic to our lives that they have become totemic symbols – they areus.


Look at the millions of almost fetishistic unboxing videos on YouTube, where feverishily excited fans will unwrap new gizmos with an almost spiritual reverence and awe. And it's little wonder because electronics packaging has become an artform – almost as much a part of the "user experience" as the menu screen on the device itself. Apple has always understood this, its super stylish, minimalistic white packaging providing a sort of cardboard cathedral for every product.


Packaging up nostalgia


Really though, gadgets give us enormous amounts of pleasure; they signpost moments in our lives, they are the means through which a lot of our relationships are experienced and recalled. And so it's no surprise that their packages quickly become nostalgic artifacts.


I asked Twitter about the habit of squirreling away gadget packaging and was inundated with messages. "I still have the boxes for my [Sega] MegaDrive and its Menacer lightgun. They've been through me growing up and moving house 3 times," came one reply. "I was recently heartbroken when I broke the original polystyrene around my C64," wrote another.


One reader told me they kept the box for their Spectrum 128k computer because it reminded them of playing games with their dad – which is exactly why I still have the box for my own Sega MegaDrive. "I still have the original box my copy of 'Creatures' came in, from 1997," wrote games artist Jess Hyland. "It is a treasured relic of the game that got me into games development."


Keepsakes are a natural part of our nostalgic lives; we have always had them – it's just now, they come in the form of packaging – the remnants of our increasingly digitised lives. Is this sad? I don't think so. As I was picking up all the boxes that attacked me from my own attic, I recalled where I was when I bought each console, the friends I played against, the times I had. No doubt I once told myself I should keep the boxes in case I sold the machines, but deep down I probably knew I wouldn't sell them, and that this wasn't the reason I couldn't part with all this stuff.


Maybe I will pull out all the polysterene and cardboard dividers and flatten the boxes – that seems sensible. But then of course, the ultimate realisation, beyond the stuff about warranties and eBay, is that none of this is sensible. Anyway, most of the boxes are now in their new home – the loft space in my current house; and there they will stay, until the next time they fall on my head, battering me with a familiar combination of cardboard and cherished memories.