Online convenience leads to environmental degradation, social isolation, and the decline of real-life interactions
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The stickiness of the Internet and social media is mainly due to our obsession with convenience. The digital world offers an unimaginably massive and convoluted buffet of conveniences. 24/7/365 access to news and information, instant messaging, unlimited entertainment, and online shopping is accessible through your hand-held device, which is not much bigger than a credit card.
In all its forms, the Internet capitalizes on the relationship between convenience and increased consumption.
Advertisers and marketers lost no time capitalizing on the golden opportunity to exploit the convenience of the Internet, further fueling our wasteful first-world consumerism. As a result, tech companies and apps now dominate our lives, making it easier than ever to order takeout, have products delivered to our doorsteps, and swipe left in search of a soulmate.
As we become more addicted to the convenience of online shopping from the comfort of our homes, we’re unintentionally causing harm to both our mental health and the environment. Interestingly, the Sears Catalogue, founded in 1887, was like the Amazon of its time. Over a century ago, our forefathers could get almost anything by mail, which made sense as cars weren’t around to make shopping and transporting purchases easy.
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So why wasn’t the convenience of shopping from a mail-order catalogue widely adopted?
I don’t know. Was it the six to eight weeks it took to receive your order?
There’s a lot of talk lately about loneliness and isolation. A U.S. Department of Health and Human Services report released in April 2023 titled Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation found that even before the COVID-19 pandemic, about half of U.S. adults reported experiencing measurable levels of loneliness.
Would it be a stretch to assume the rise in loneliness is a consequence of our taking advantage of the Internet’s many stay-at-home conveniences? Not so long ago, malls – marketplaces and shopping districts before them – were community-like hubs, akin to town squares, where you met your friends, ran into neighbours, and even made new acquaintances. You saw people, you connected.
Malls offer more than just a plethora of retail stores; they also provide social experiences that many of us are now abandoning in favour of online shopping, which is one of the most environmentally harmful ways to shop. Instead of visiting a store to try on a jacket and see how it fits, many people now order five jackets online and return four, adding to waste and environmental damage.
Ordering online has a significant negative environmental impact. That ‘must-have’ avocado slicer you bought online will arrive in a box the size of a doghouse, packed with enough bubble wrap to protect a mini fridge.
Those over 50 can remember when shopping wasn’t a daily, let alone a 24/7/365 activity. People used to write something called a shopping list. Then, they went to the store or mall and gathered all the items on their list at once. Then, they took their purchases home, put everything in its place, and felt the satisfaction of a job well done.
When you order online, robots and workers, who are often treated like robots, pack your Tim Hortons Original Coffee blend and Single Serve Keurig K-Cup Pods into an oversized box and deliver it to your home along with three other large boxes, each containing just one item that could have been purchased locally. We then appease our environmental guilt by tossing all the excessive packaging into blue bins as if they were a gateway to plastic heaven. However, according to the Government of Canada website, only nine percent of Canada’s plastic waste is actually recycled; the rest ends up in landfills, waste-to-energy plants, or polluting the environment, including the ocean.
Shopping online for stuff you likely don’t need, knowing its negative impact on the environment, while crying about the environment is sheer hypocrisy. Every time you click buy it now, a tree gets its wings.
No one wants to think about the child labour in Bangladesh who made the Nike hoodie they ordered off Amazon, the ship, air, rail and truck that transported it, or the landfill the hotdog toaster they bought on impulse – prompted by an ad you saw on Facebook – will eventually end up. We just want that t-shirt that says “Mindful.”
Online shopping is wreaking havoc on our planet’s environment. The kicker is we’ve sold ourselves the false narrative that online shopping is eco-friendly. Making a list, getting off the couch, and getting it is much better for our environment and has the added benefit of meeting people and maybe even finding your soul mate.
Thanks to the Internet, you can go days or weeks without speaking to anyone. Time spent online is time spent being sedentary and not having real-life interactions. Online shopping reduces our social and community interactions, leading to loneliness. I’m sure you’ve noticed, as I have, that social skills, especially amongst millennials, Generation Z, and the current Generation Alpha, are deteriorating. You can’t experience all life has to offer sitting on a couch – I know there are exceptions.
Another reason to avoid shopping online is privacy. Going to a store is buying and leaving without creating a trail of cookies and tracking/analyzing.
Nick Kossovan, a self-described connoisseur of human psychology, writes about what’s on his mind from Toronto.
Explore more on Social media, Mental health, Depression
The opinions expressed by our columnists and contributors are theirs alone and do not inherently or expressly reflect the views of our publication.
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