In 1995 I read Nicholas Negroponte’s Being Digital. It had a huge influence about how I (and I think many of my Psion colleagues at the time) thought about “content”. His main point was that the digital age would allow the separation of the content (the bits) and the medium the content was delivered to you on (the atoms).

It struck me the other day that, 15 years later, I have been having similar atoms/bits conversations with a number of people recently.

I have never tended to keep books – I very rarely read a book more than once. Once I’ve read something I’d much rather pass it onto someone else to read than put it on a shelf to gather dust. If I really needed to read it again I could get hold of it easily enough. But I feel I’m in the minority on this – most people I know love their books and would never think about giving them away.

I used to be like this about music – I was very precious about my collection of records and subsequently CDs. I think the way I rationalised it at the time was that a CD was something you would play again and again.

However I now think that keeping shelves of books and/or CDs is much more about reflecting how these things define you and your taste. Seeing some-one’s book or music collection tells you a lot about them. The High Fidelity idea of organising your music by the order it was bought in mapping out your life.

I have finally got round to getting a Kindle. There is no doubt in my mind that this is certainly the way I’ll consume books from now on. I’ve bought hardly any CDs for at least a couple of years now due to Spotify. For me these systems work precisely because there are no atoms but just bits – my books and music are available from a variety of devices depending on where I am and what I’m doing.

So is there a divide opening up here between people who still see themselves as defined by the atoms they own (atomophiles?) and those that are happy to give the atoms up (and the shelving systems they inevitably require) (bitophiles?) for the convenience of being able to access the bits from wherever they are?

Will the bitophiles pity the atomophiles for their late-adopter Luddite ways?

Will the atomophiles pity the bitophiles for their lack of soul and sense of history?

Will Ikea sell fewer shelving systems?