Читать книгу Essentials of Sociology - George Ritzer - Страница 150

Consistent with the emphasis on consumption in this book, and in the contemporary world, it is important to understand that children need to be socialized in order to consume, especially to devote a significant portion of their lives to consumption (Atkinson, Nelson, and Rademacher 2015). Like many other types of socialization, much of this takes place early on in the family (Meuleman and Lubbers 2016), in schools, and in peer groups. Of course, we must not ignore the role of marketing, especially to children, in how people learn to consume (Schor 2005).

However, much socialization now takes place at consumption sites themselves rather than in the family, in schools, or through advertisements. For example, preteens and teens spend a large amount of time at shopping malls, either with their families or, as they mature, on their own and in the company of peers. Although young people may be going to a movie in a mall’s multiplex or just “hanging out” at the mall rather than shopping, the fact remains that those activities take place in a setting devoted to shopping and consumption (Cook 2004; Rose 2010). Children readily learn the nuts and bolts of how to consume. They also learn various norms and values of consumption, especially to value the processes of consumption and shopping and the goods and services acquired through those processes.

There is a toy line produced by Moose Toys oriented mainly to selling figurines called Shopkins to children (see www.shopkinsworld.com). More important, these products also aim at promoting unbridled consumption—“Once you shop . . . you can’t stop!”—both in the present and implicitly throughout the life span of those who first play with the toys as children. The immediate goal is to entice children into collecting as many Shopkins and as much associated paraphernalia as possible. A broader goal is implicit in the fact that the figurines are characters associated with a wide array of items that can be purchased in stores. Among them are Kooky Cookie (a chocolate chip cookie), Polly Polish (a bottle of nail polish), and Lippy Lips (a tube of lipstick). Most broadly, the goal is to encourage a lifetime of “hyperconsumption” (Ritzer 2012a).

Online consumption and shopping sites (such as Amazon and eBay) are also socializing agents. Navigation and buying strategies are learned at digital retailers, and those have an effect on consumption in the brick-and-mortar world. For instance, many younger people who have grown up with online shopping are adept comparison shoppers. They are likely to compare products online and to search out the best possible deals before making purchases. Some storefront retailers have gone out of business as a result of online competition, further reinforcing the use of online retailers. Other largely storefront retailers (e.g., Walmart) have developed new hybrids of online and storefront retailing. They offer consumers the ability to buy online and then pick up their items at local outlets (Amazon has recently entered this market). The hope is that visits to local stores will lead consumers to make unplanned purchases. These new forms of retailing offer new ways of socializing young people into our culture of consumption.

Socialization into being a consumer also reinforces lessons about race, class, and gender (Otnes and Zayre 2012). In Inside Toyland (2006), Christine Williams shows that consumer choices—where to shop, what brands to buy, what products are appropriate for whom—contribute to the maintenance of social inequalities. Girls face pressure to consume beauty products that encourage them to live up to an idealized and usually unattainable level of female beauty (Wiklund et al. 2010). For example, the Barbie doll is often presented as an ideal form of the female body—one physically impossible to attain in real life. Such toys socialize children not only into a consumer culture but also into one that reproduces and reinforces harmful gender expectations.