I have been diagnosed “Late Delivery Anxiety”
How COVID-19 has changed my online shopping behaviour
I started shopping online 4 years ago on Amazon. Since then I have been an amazon prime member and enjoying the next day delivery service. I have been an online shopping fanboy.
I would not have noticed its impact on me if not for the endless COVID-19.
Like everybody, I was locked at home for half the summer. Besides 3 weeks in the countryside in August, I have pretty much avoided all my usual entertainments — my weekly restaurants discovery, occasional after-work drinks and weekend picnic at Parc Montsouris.
I used to go cycling everywhere, especially in summer, enjoying the view of the pretty boys and girls in Paris with their wine by Canal Saint-Martin, or people nibbling charcuterie at the bistros alongside their e-cigarettes. But since March, I have mostly been on a 2 point route — home and the nearby supermarket.
Online shopping soon took over and became my major hobby.
It began with me rationalizing myself to buy a few cheap goodies. Then the ball kept rolling till I would have more spare cash in my account. I am too ashamed to tell you what useless luxury items I purchased. But there is something worse than spending all my cash. It has affected my health — my mental health.
Delivery time has been unpredictable since the pandemic, even till now. Whenever I have a free moment, my mind would focus on impatiently waiting for my delivery as if nothing else matters more. The online delivery status update would say “expected delivery today”, but never list the delivery hour. I would wait irritably, like an addict awaiting his drugs, yet they would deliver nothing to me as scheduled. Sometimes it happens once, sometimes it happens a few times.
At this particular moment, I have been waiting for a camera bag that I should have received 4 days ago. This kind of constant waiting has put a lot of pressure on my mind — I only just realise what it is doing to me, and how it makes absolutely no sense.
Shopping used to be always a pleasant experience for me. It was not the “buying” that is satisfying, no, no. It was an excuse to hangout with friends and family, trying out different styles of clothing, being amused by the latest techs in showrooms. It would still be a good day, even if going home empty-handed. With online shopping these days, it’s just so different.
Combining with the 2020 machine learning Artificial Intelligence running non-stop round the clock, tracking every single move I make on social media, and having such data being sold to businesses, advertising online cannot be more effective. What I potentially want, they always find their way to me. My brain could never get a break from new products that I don’t need. I do not need them — until I eventually got convinced that I do. Needs can be artificial, even more so with our super-phone in hands.
From being made curious to being manipulated by all the social media marketing, to taking in-depth look at the product, to searching for it and ordering it. It is all so easy to find “the one”, except that the next “the one” is always somewhere on the internet sneaking to us.
I should really thank all these late delivery services. It is only because of that I find out how much craving I have for these non-essential goodies. I have finally realized that I am mentally ill. I still very much appreciate the convenience online shopping has brought to us. With it, families and friends can focus their energy on games, road trip and have fresh adventures together more often — provided that nobody became an addict to it. But for now, I must first focus on my recovery and nourishing healthier habits so I do not become a slave to technology that should have benefited me.