The appeal of random doodads

BASINGSTOKE, England — Simon Hunt is proud of his gadgets. From the open-sesame electric garage door to the satellite-navigation gear in the car, he isn't afraid to extol the virtues of technology.

"The sign of a good gizmo," he says, enthusing about a pair of flip-flops with a bottle opener crafted into the soles, "is that you can't live without it."

Yet packed away are plenty more doodads that he and partner Deborah apparently live quite happily without. Like the popcorn-maker and the fitness trampoline. Oh, and the microwave omelet-maker. Even an electric nail-file buffing system.

"Get a life if you have time to use this," Deborah says.

It's a growing feature of middle-class homes such as this one in southern England. Britons are accumulating piles of household gadgets that they rarely, if ever, use.

The phenomenon is, of course, replicated across much of the rich world. But it's a trend that is providing fodder for economists and psychologists. Does such "having" provide any value to the consumer, or to society? Or is it just a waste of money?

If it's the latter, then it's a big waste. Recent research calculated that Britons have accumulated almost $18 billion worth of household "white elephants" — gadgets that are rarely if ever used. That's 1 percent of the nation's GDP.

For some, it's the sandwich toaster that seemed like a good idea at the time. For others it's the electric knife that only comes out at Christmas, or the juicer that seems twice as messy as it did when shown on the shopping channel.

"We are constantly buying new fads," says Niki Bolton of the online insurer esure that conducted the study. "Take the bread-maker. A few of my friends have got them. They start off making bread rolls for a few days and then give up."

Bolton admits she hoards a bit too. "I've got a sandwich toaster tucked away, and a footspa and face steamer. A lot of things like that up in the loft."

Some of these dust-gathering widgets are unwanted gifts — as much as $7.2 billion according to esure, a British insurance site. A quarter of those surveyed said they had bought a gift that they suspected would remain in its box.

But the majority are things that people buy for themselves. Like the toaster that brands "I love you" onto the side of your bread. Or the "lavnav" light that "makes the toilet safe and easy to see at night."

Richard Elliot, an expert in consumer culture at Warwick Business School in central England, says from an economics viewpoint it would be facile to dismiss such hoarding as a net waste of resources.

He says that sometimes it's the idea of the gadget rather than the material usage derived from it that is important in consumer societies. In short, it's all about the having rather than the using.

While this may not always be true of a bread-maker or waffle iron, the self-image theory is much touted in academic circles as an explanation for impulse purchases. Some studies have shown as many as 10 percent of adults in rich countries show compulsive-shopping tendencies.

Elliot says, moreover, that this consumerism is an important motor for western economies. If we stopped buying trivial contraptions and things to make us feel better, then growth in rich countries would be severely affected, he says.

Yet morally and financially, the trend may be harder to justify. It coincides with a boom in credit in Britain in recent years and a sharp rise in the number of people with debt problems.

"Satisfaction and meaning and a general boost for the self used to come from church, or society, other people in essence," Elliot says. "But now what you have is goods replacing people."