6-1-00 - EDITORIAL
- Remember, a beautiful life is merely prayer in motion, and a world without prayer has no center to it. God bless us all.
Grocery stores and Walmarts
Ever notice those silly little machines at the checkout stands at Walmart and your local grocery store? You know, the one that you just 'swipe your card through' and you are done? If you are really good, (and lucky) the machine will allow you to get a little cash in addition to your purchases. How wonderful! A machine that further limits contact with another human being in the course of our daily lives.
So here you are sitting at your computer, reading these words on a screen, wondering, what the heck is he talking about this time? What I'm talking about is this:
Already in several parts of the country, grocery stores are experimenting with checkout lanes/stands that use no people. Nope, it's true. The purchaser puts their groceries on the checkout stand themselves, scans the price themselves, and then 'swipes' their card themselves, and they not only get the total pleasure of self-service, but they also get a whopping 5% discount! All because they didn't have to interface with another human being.
What happens one day in the not-so-distant future when we walk into a Walmart or other large chain store, say.....Mervyn's, and there is no one there at all? There is just a huge vending machine, you punch a few buttons, and your new jeans come sliding down a chute for you to take home.
It seems to me that the use of machines is further turning us all into machines. And we wonder why our children behave the way they do, why road-rage is rampant, why social activities are dwindling, and why a normal rock concert turns into a massacre? As a social whole, we are dehumanizing each other. No wonder racism, once the banner of humanity, is no longer a big deal. People aren't people any longer, they are just characters on a screen, numbers on a card, (if they by chance are wealthy enough to posess a card) or irritants on a street corner.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating a devolution of technology. I simply feel that we need to find a way to utilize real people where and whenever we have the opportunity to do so. Do we really, really need to not have someone to say, "Hello, thank you for coming to XYZ grocery store today, and we appreciate your business. How are you doing today?" For all the world knows, perhaps grocery store clerks would replace the corner barbershop for counseling services. Remember on the Andy Griffith show, everyone would gather at Floyd's Barbershop to gossip and catch up on the town's events? What's happened to that in our communities?
It's gone the way of the swipe. Our social lives have literally been swiped from us. But I, for one, am gonna swipe back. I need my social interface. I need to say hello to people, and I need to give my money, and receive my change, from a human being.
Now turn off your computer and go outside, say hello to your neighbor. Just don't scare him when you do it. It might have been a while since another human being actually spoke to him/her.
- Send us your comments, arguments, and opinions