9: Shop 'Til You Drop

Although the transition from the New York City suburb I grew up in to the wonderful Ithaca, NY for school was a fairly easy one, there was one aspect of the move that was not so simple: the lack of stores available for a good days worth of shopping. While Ithaca is good for getting that freshly baked apple pie or those hand woven gloves you have always wanted, I do not find it easy to find a good pair of jeans or a great pair of shoes that are sometimes necessary items. Thus, I turned to the wonderful world of online shopping to fill the void I felt in this area.

While my use of the Internet for shopping has not lead to something known as Problematic Internet Use, online shopping most certainly can lead to such a behavior. Problematic Internet Use is defined as a problematic behavior related to too much time online (Hancock 2007), and Wallace discusses four factors that may lead to such behavior:

1. Locus of Control: the degree to which one believes that thy have control over their circumstances. Because of the nature of the Internet, people can control everything about their lives online; thus, people with a high need of control spend a great deal of time on the Internet.

2. Operant Conditioning: when behavior is rewarded with a variable schedule, the behavior is much harder to extinguish. This is perhaps most important in synchronous psychological spaces.

3. Maintenance of Virtual Presence: it is easy to manage ones impressions and presence on the Internet.

4. Newbie Disease: levels of non-adaptive behavior fluctuate. First, for example, when a new technology is released, we spend a lot of time using it. As time goes on, however, people tend to back off and use it less and less (Hancock 2007).

Operant conditioning, maintenance of virtual presence, and newbie disease deal with properties of the Internet that lead to Problematic Internet Use (Hancock 2007). In terms of operant conditioning, the particular online space of Internet shopping allows behavior to be rewarded with a variable time schedule, and it is thus, much harder to extinguish. Although people can go for days searching a countless number of sites, in hopes of finding either something they were searching for or something they cannot live without, people do, on a variable schedule, find the perfect item. Furthermore, newbie disease comes in to play; when a new website is released or discovered, people can spend hours upon hours searching the site, yet as time moves on, this occurs less and less.

Locus of control, however, has to do with individual factors that lead to Problematic Internet Use, and in 2002, Davis, Fleet, and Besser developed a study focusing on individual differences and how they may lead to problematic behavior. Their four factors include, diminished impulse control, loneliness/depression, social comfort, distraction/procrastination, and they concluded that both individual differences and Internet properties lead to Problematic Internet Use.

In 2004, Caplan too developed a study that attempted to examine Problematic Internet Use, and came up with the following hypotheses:
1. People with psychosocial problems, such as depression and loneliness, hold negative perceptions about their social competence. Perhaps they feel that by shopping online and not in an actual store, they do not have to deal with other people looking at them, evaluating them, or talking with them.
2. People that have the above social issues prefer online communication because it is less threatening and they feel more effacious. By using the Internet to do their shopping, they do not have to communicate with sales people, or discuss with others as to what they are looking for or what looks good on them.
2. Preference for online interaction leads to excessive and compulsive online interaction, which then worsens the problem. Because shopping online tends to be a positive experience, people will turn to it more and more and the problem with then be worsened. In a sense, Caplan saw Problematic Internet Use as a vicious cycle that although stems from psychosocial problems, further embeds psychosocial problems as a result of excessive, compulsive Internet use.

Although online shopping can lead to Problematic Internet Use due to both the nature of the Internet as well as individual factors, it also offers some unique features that can further lead to such behavior. Online shopping allows people to not only visit every single store they could ever possibly want to visit at any time of day, but it allows people to do so in such a way where people do not need to leave their home. I, for example, am able to shop at some of my favorite stores from home or in other places that are thousands of miles away, all while I am sitting in my bed, in my pajamas, watching television.

Moreover, the Internet allows people to buy absolutely anything they ever wanted. Even if a store nearby does not carry an item, the Internet offers the amazing capability of being able to purchase absolutely anything needed from anywhere in the world.

Additionally, shopping online is a huge time saver; not only can you look at a specific brand or stores’ inventory before venturing out to see if they actually carry a specific item in the actual store, but it is much quicker to click a button and enter ones credit card information than it is to drive to the store, try everything on, pay for the item, and drive home. Online shopping allows people to purchase and try on items in their own convenience, and this is why it is attractive to so many people.

Furthermore, the ability to compare various items found on different sites is another unique feature of online shopping that could lead to problematic behavior, as it gives people the ability to evaluate different brands, colors, and prices all by the click of a button.

Image from: http://www.cavalierdaily.com/.Archives/1999/10/21/lfkate.gif

Comments:
http://comm245yellow.blogspot.com/2007/11/v.html
http://comm245yellow.blogspot.com/2007/11/assignment-9-ebat-obsessions.html