Janet Dahlberg
A flashback to when my siblings and I went to Toys "R" Us in 2006. Picking out those bears in the store as a family made the experience very special.
As a child, I always loved trips to the toy store with my family.
I remember going to the Toys “R” Us in Foster City with them; running down those never-ending aisles with my siblings, pushing those little carts around, and grabbing as much stuff as we can. It gave us the thrill of what a time it was to be alive.
It was a fantastic feeling to know that all of those toys were at the tips of our little fingers. Those short trips brought my siblings and myself to work together to convince my mom that we needed all of the toys that we had pulled off of the shelves.
Looking back at all of those times at the toy store, I remember a time we all felt comfortable to be our crazy selves.
Fast-forward to 2018.
Toys “R” Us is will never be the same. Goodbye, childhood playhouse.
According to CNN, “‘We get customers who come in and give us hugs,’ said Madelyn Garcia, manager of the store in Boynton Beach, Florida, who has been with the company for 30 years.”
Toys “R” Us holds this family value of cherishing the spirit to keep the youth alive. There is not a single toy company that has been around for so long, that holds the same values. The new generation will never know what it is like to go to any toy store and look through endless aisles to find the toy they love.
Hello Amazon.com.
Or should I say, hello impatience?
With a click of a button, parents can strip away the amount of time that they spend with their child.
Although it creates a whole new atmosphere for toy buying, parents will not realize that they are losing that special bond with their children. Kids can easily text their parents what they want on Amazon, and it will be shipped to their house in just a few days.
It is becoming depressing to see that parents are losing quality time with their children because children are getting too demanding with having what they want and when they want it.
One of their most popular products is Alexa, an in-home speaker that immediately responds to your voice.
According to the Washington Post, “’Alexa tolerates poor manners.’ To ask her a question, all you need to do is say her name, followed by the query. No ‘please.’ And no ‘thank you’ before asking a follow-up.’ Cognitively, I’m not sure a kid gets why you can boss Alexa around but not a person,’ [Hunter] Walk wrote. ‘At the very least, it creates patterns and reinforcement that so long as your diction is good, you can get what you want without niceties.’”
Even though Amazon is trying to change our society, they do not realize that they are creating parents who think it is okay to give in to their children and not let them earn what they want to receive.
Children will become machines, and it will cause chaos that gets to the point where they demand what they want rather than asking nicely. Our society will be severely damaged if this continues in the future.