UNITED STATES—I hate to say it, but it feels the experience of the mall is slowly dying America. People are not going, everyone is sitting in bed or on a couch clicking and ordering everything on their smartphone, tablet or computer and getting it delivered courtesy of Amazon or some other super-fast delivery service.
It is quite a bummer because it feels like every time I turn around a local mall or retailer is shuttering its doors, and that is a problem not many Americans are realizing. Get off your phones and go into a store before we don’t have many to go into at all. The retailers are literally going out of business as a result, and I hate to say it, but I am going to say, it, I’m not a massive fan of Amazon. I’m not one of those rushing to Amazon every time I need to purchase something.
There are other retailers, and the fact that people go to Amazon to purchase things that they can actually purchase from the retailer itself is just odd. Have we become such a lazy culture that we must and I mean we MUST have things immediately. Guess what you can have it immediately if you go to the mall or the actual store. On top it, you get out of the house and you get actual physical movement, which “Hello, we all can utilize a bit more of it.”
The notion of doing everything from home has made us significantly lazy. We are not moving and it is beginning to have an impact on our overall health and lifestyle. The mall when I was a kid was a place to hang, it was cool to be at the mall and people had fun doing it. Nowadays I don’t know what is going on because with more retailers going out of business, it is impacting rent at many malls, and as a result those malls are starting to shutter their doors.
Going to the mall is not just about spending money, which a lot of people suspect. There is a thing such as window shopping; just browsing and looking to see what is out there. You get the opportunity to interact with people and the public, you get to converse, you can walk. That is physical activity and there are always mall walkers people. You don’t have to be old in age to get a bit of physical activity. If you’re retired or just looking for something to do on your day off, you can walk around your local mall, met new people, meet new friends, and once you have that physical activity in, you can grab a bite to eat or have a little treat for yourself.
The great perk about the mall is that you see what new items are out there. Whether it be clothing, the great thing is you can actually try on the shirt or the pants or the shoes, which means you’re not buying something if it doesn’t properly fit America. You don’t have to waste time to take something back that you had delivered because it doesn’t look the way you thought it would look or it just isn’t the fit you expected or wanted.
You can touch and feel the actual item that you’re about to spend your hard-earned money on. You see it close up, and a lot of the time, when you shop in-person you’re more likely to find special discount items in-store versus online. Yeah, the things on clearance are not all going to be accessible by a click of your phone or your keyboard.
The mall is a place to socialize and our lack of socialization is about to become more meek if we don’t get out there and actually utilize what was once a staple, but is soon becoming a things of the past. Think about it, Amazon is already a titan, so if all the malls close, Amazon gets the opportunity to pick the price on items you want, do you truly want a monopoly?
Written By Zoe Mitchell
