#2 I See What You Did There..

In Douglas Rushkoff’s introduction to “They Say”, we get tricked. Fooled. Swindled. Everything he talked about in his introduction, he used against us, and we didn’t even know it until we read the last couple paragraphs. The purpose of his book is to teach us about how we are so easily tricked into buying things, or thinking a certain way because of marketing tactics, research and testing. He talks about how things are structured and built a certain way, such as malls, to make us buy more than we need. He says in paragraph 13, “We don't know exactly how to get back to the car, and we will have to walk past twenty more stores before we find an exit.” Take Fayette Mall for example, there are very few entrances, with a rather large parking lot. You’d be out of luck if you found yourself clear on the other side of the mall come closing time. It is things like this masked coercive ideas in our everyday lives that are really messing with us. There’s this picture I always see on Facebook, a media site which posts advertising based on my age, where I live and what I like to do, that says “Nine year olds now a days have Ipads, Iphones, Itouches, ECT. When I was nine, I had my coloring book and crayons.” Since when did having all of those fancy electronics become a must have toy for small children? It just doesn’t make sense. It’s also not just the kids who are spoiled; it’s the adults as well. The coercive techniques they use now days to get people to buy their products are scientifically proven to work! Apple stores are required to tilt their screen’s 70 degrees upon opening the store to lure people into opening them up all the way, taking a look at what’s being offered. I know from experience about up selling. I work, and have worked in a place where it’s something you must do. I really liked this article. It really tricked me in the end, and it really does show how easily we can be suckered in to buying things we don’t need or doing things we don’t need to do.