I don’t know about you, but for me, getting rid of computer stuff is hard. Our devices are expensive and they contain data, which is a security risk for identity theft.
Some of them, like tablets and phones, are very personal items that we live with for years. We carry them around, touch them, stare at them for hours. Digital devices have been a part of most people’s everyday lives for years.
Did you ever watch the movie The Hunger, with Catherine Deneuve, David Bowie, and Susan Sarandon? Catherine’s Miriam is a vampire and David Bowie is her lover, John. Susan Sarandon is a doctor that is drawn into their relationship because John is dying. At the end (spoiler alert!) we find out that all of Miriam’s former lovers still live a silent half-life in her attic.
That is why I think it is so hard to get rid of our tech! They still live (or are dead) in a drawer or a corner, tossed aside when the shiny new version arrives.
I tell myself that I will clean off the data and take them to be recycled… but somehow that doesn’t happen. And then I end up with bins and baskets of phones, cables and cords. Dusty ancient towers in the corner from when they were beige instead of black with big honking hard drives.
I ended up taking a drill press to my hard drives. While it was sort of fun, I don’t recommend it. It took quite a while to remove them from their cases, set them up on the drill, and crunch them until I was satisfied.
I wasn’t worried about them not being able to be re-used because they were so old they hold tiny amounts of data, no one would want them.
For me, it is like there is a little piece of my life caught up in them, and I am loath to let it just slip away. The physical destruction helped me say goodbye this time, but in the future I’ll find another way.
There is some good information about how to deal with old tech so you don’t have to resort to a drill press.
PC World article on how to securely erase hard drives or SSDs on Windows machines. An SSD is a solid-state drive, which uses memory on a special chip instead of spinning disks, and need different erasing techniques.
How-to Geek has a good article on securely erasing on a Mac.
For phones or other devices, search for securely erase device, for example, securely erase iPhone or securely erase android.
For items that might be connected to an account, such as a kindle, or an Apple Watch, you can search for securely erase. Or try factory reset or selling, even if you are just recycling.
Do you have trouble getting rid of your tech devices? Are your reasons similar, or do you have different reasons?
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