Shopping Science

In The Science of Shopping, Malcolm Gladwell claims that shoppers are closely watched by "retail anthropologists" to the point that the customers shopping habits and body language are broken down to a science. Paco Underhill, a retail anthropologists, as described in the article is a person who studies shoppers from  the pace that they walk to how, what, and when to catch a customers attention. Simple techniques and modifications to a store by moving merchandise from one side of the store to the other could be the difference between a potential buyer and a window shopper. Also for example by spreading a variety of all items through a grocery store forces the customer to walk through the entire store allowing the person to view all other foods and not just limiting the customer to walk in and out with the minimum items that they intended on getting. This technique works in favor of the company allowing the owner/store to maximize profits.

I would agree with Gladwell in the claim that shoppers are being closely monitered on the things they look at, the location in the store they are in, and what tends to catch the customers eye. These methods among others are used by such people as Paco Underhill who study human behavior and catorgorize shoppers into certain stereotypes to figure out what the customer finds most appealing. I myself see these manipulations put into effect on a day to day basis from the mall to small company advertisements. Until I read this article I would have not realized on how in depth a company would go and extremes that are taken to attract consumers. Although it is somewhat of a cutthroat style business its what america is built on, consumers want more. Of what you may ask? no one knows for sure but put "shining sticker" on it and you got the buyers attention.

Not always what it seems

In Jack Solomon's You-Topian Dreams it discusses a variety of issues that stem from the use online networking. Ranging from social media sites like Facebook and other sites such as Youtube it has become relatively easy to post videos. Whether the video post is for entertainment purposes or important issues in our everyday life its easy for a viewer from the audience to misinterpret the message that is being sent. There are apps available now and new ones being produced that allow an individual to cut and crop out certain parts of a video to their liking. An example of such activity is mentioned in the article whereas a blogger clipped out a portion of a speech by African American USDA employee where her words were taken out of context to suit the bloggers liking.
The video would go viral. This action of cropping the video made the employee seem as a racist thus getting her fired from her job.

 

 

I believe that this idea of cropping videos and remaking them to the individuals liking is getting out of hand. These videos being re-edited an reposted on-line I think to be of a defaming nature. Since everyone nowadays seem to be computer geniuses and have too much time on there hands it is becoming seen more often a certain video or picture posted over and over time again. It gets quite annoying although I myself sometimes find the post funny, I myself would not like my words or actions taken out of context. Such actions might have negative outcomes like the one mentioned in Jack Solomon's article.