The Reduction of Personal Interaction

by Justin Levy on January 23, 2009

Yesterday I was running a few errands when it struck me.  With the advancements of technology moving into the retail and consumer spaces, it is possible to go an entire dahandshakey of being out without ever having a personal interaction.  Take this sample morning of running errands as an example:

  • You leave your house and stop at the gas station.  Since you’re paying with credit card you never go inside the store and therefore never have an interaction with the clerk.
  • Next, you stop at the bank to deposit a couple checks, check your balance and withdraw some cash.  You do this all from the ATM.  Alas, no interaction.
  • You run across the street to the grocery store.  You go inside and grab one of the personal scanners.  As you walk through the store you scan your items and bag them.  You head over to the meat counter, punch your order into the touchscreen and a few minutes later grab your turkey and cheese from a slot where they placed the items when the computerized system called your number.  When you’re done shopping you head to self-checkout, dock your personal scanner, swipe your credit card and are done.  No need to have personal interaction.
  • You plan on staying in tonight so, while still at the grocery store, you head over to the Redbox movie vending machines.  Again, a swipe of your credit card and out pops this week’s 2 new releases that you really wanted to see.  Catching on yet?  Yep, no personal interaction.
  • When you get out to your car you remember that you brought that pesky bag of coins that have been laying around the house.  You head back into the grocery store and hit up the Coinstar machine.  Dump in your coins, choose to receive an Amazon gift card, and off you go.
  • Next stop, recycling some bottles from the Sunday football routine.  Nope, no need for personal interaction here either.  Pop your bottles in, grab your receipt and off you go.  You’ll save them for the next time you run through self-checkout at the grocery store.
  • You remember that you need some cleaning supplies, some pet food and a few other things.  Time to hit up Walmart.  The biggest retailer in the entire world.  Surely you’ll have some personal interaction here right?  Nope.  You grab your items, head to self-checkout, sign the little digital reader and off you go.
  • After a tiring couple hours you head home, log into Amazon and buy a couple books you’ve been really wanting with that gift card you got from Coinstar.

In that scenario there was no need for any personal interaction yet you were very productive and probably spent the entire morning running around.  While this is great from a productivity standpoint, is it hurting the chances for us to have meaningful face-to-face interactions?  I think so.  Furthermore, this isn’t even taking into consideration what these technologies are doing by reducing the workforce, increasing the bottom line of these corporations, and the many other factors that come into play with implementations of more and more advanced technologies into the consumer space.  Granted, I prefer to use these technologies as they allow me to stay highly productive and move at my speed, not the speed of others around me.  But, it is interesting to look at from a higher level, more global standpoint.

This is another reason why I am in love with social media.  What I didn’t add to the above schedule is that after all that, you come home, log into Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and GTalk and have 50+ meaningful conversations with friends from all over the world.  However, there is something about face-to-face interaction that is very important.  It is one of the things I enjoy the most about going to conferences, meetups and other networking events.  There are some things that can only be gotten from face-to-face interactions.  Maybe that is one of the reasons why I enjoy this social space so much….because it is social and there are less and less opportunities for me to have meaningful face-to-face discussions with the gas clerk, sales rep, movie store employee, etc.

What’s say you?

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Photo by: Litandmore

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  • You mean that flipping of the bird and sharing of profanities at that ass-wipe of a driver that cut you off isn't a personal interaction? Aw shucks... ;-)

    We do spend a lot of time in our online persona that sometimes it's easy to forget there's a real living world out there with people that are breathing the same local air as us.

    I deliberately avoid the auto-checkouts at supermarkets for this reason; I shop at the corner store for the conversation; I call friends up to talk and catch up on the week.

    We're great at building and managing communities online; remembering how we do that will help us just as much offline. Funny, I'm sure that used to be the other way around...

    <abbr>Danny Brown’s last blog post..Free Subscriptions Cost Money Too</abbr>
  • Hi Justin,
    I have a friend that is in his 60s and he refuses to use the UScan for that very reason that it is cutting jobs. In Michigan, there aren't UScans in Walmart. So that is good.

    I use them, and I was working for a grocery store when they first started in the early to mid 90s. I totally agree that they are taking away from communication and we barely know our neighbors.

    To get someone to use the TELEPHONE for reasons such as talking is like pulling teeth. They use it as a texting device and when a short relationship has ended or you just decide to not see someone the text message is often the message of choice. I wrote about Social Media and Dating. You should read it. It is almost the same thing as what you are talking about. There are so many venues for you to just avoid communication these days.

    Great blog.

    <abbr>Jamie Favreau’s last blog post..Be the Change! Come out for Team in Training on Jan 28!</abbr>
  • Justin,
    Great insight here. We are reducing the amount of interaction in our local community, and increasing our communication with those of similar interests and passions. I think if we aren't careful we can lose our sense of local community. You also failed to mention how parents can digitally interact with their kids throughout the day and never have face to face time.

    I had a short conversation with a health insurance guy last week and he said if he wants to get his kids attention in the car he has to text them. How many kids do you see walking around with iPods and eyes glued to a cellphone while texting? Have you seen the guy on a motorcycle lying down and texting on his cellphone while driving? We need to be careful in our fast adaptation of technology that we do not lose sight of what's important- deep, meaningful relationships.

    David Patterson
    Elbrus Consulting

    <abbr>David Patterson’s last blog post..ElbrusOnline: PowerPoint will die after you see this, amazing - http://prezi.com/</abbr>
  • This is why I despise automation. Thanks to machines and phone menus to nowhere, we don't talk to real live people anymore. But we're also learning folks crave interaction. They don't want to leave a message or punch a button, they want personal customer service.

    This is why "community" is going the buzz word for '09 and businesses are going to more aggressively pursue social media campaigns. Automation may have saved money, but personalized service is going to save business.

    Rock on.

    <abbr>Deb Ng’s last blog post..You Are What You Tweet</abbr>
  • You forgot the walking around everywhere plugged into to your iPod, thus shutting out the possibility that anyone will have the audacity to bother you whilst running your errands or waiting on lines.

    You also have to be extremely careful not to smile at anyone. Because we all know what that can lead to. :)

    <abbr>Ezra Butler’s last blog post..Social Media Killed the Radio Star.</abbr>
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