Here’s a funny thing. The less we go to the shops, the more we shop. We buy more stuff than ever, now that we can do so without leaving the sofa. We have bypassed the bus ride into town, stepped back from the revolving doors and escalators, silenced the tinkle of muzak, skipped the exchange of smiles and niceties with sales assistants, forgotten what it feels like to journey home from the chase with shopping bags tucked next to tired legs. Instead, we can spend our hard-earned cash with the frictionless brush of an index finger, and collect our spoils from the doormat a few days later.
This, surely, is the worst of both worlds. Let us imagine for a moment a sliding-doors scenario, in which writing shopping trips out of the story had reduced our appetite for stuff. If, thanks to technological advances, we bought what we needed, and only what we needed. Imagine if the technology had been wired so that we could click on and buy a black mascara and a pair of navy socks, or whatever, and leave it at that, without the siren call of a pile of fluffy jumpers or a charming display
