Never Leave Your Home

Amazon started it and will continue to grow our “shop from my home” experience and availability. They acquired Whole Foods so now groceries have been added to their product offering. We’ve all seen the Drone deliveries to our front door step that has not entered reality just yet, but wait, it will be available. We are getting to point that we don’t have to leave our homes to purchase anything. If we are working from our “home office” we don’t even have to travel to an office to earn a living. I just saw the TV Ad for plated.com where you can order you meals and portions to be delivered to your kitchen for preparation. I recently heard of a statistic that Millennial’s (I hate that tag for a generation of powerful young adults) that said they spend 45 % of their income eating out. They don’t have time or interest in taking the time to cook a meal from scratch, shop for ingredients, or prepare a “home cooked” meal. Are we moving toward a society of people who don’t have to leave their home to shop, work, or socialize?
Let’s look at shopping. Whether it is for every day disposable goods, groceries or the big shopping season – Christmas. Do we need to leave the comfort of our homes to accomplish any of these shopping scenarios? Not really, unless you enjoy the experience in going to the mall or stores to shop for Christmas gifts and you like to get out and go to the grocery store and see what other deals may be had. The likes of Amazon, Grub Hub, Panera Delivery and Publix grocery stores offering a shopping service that will fill your order, we can never leave our house to shop or receive food and consumable goods. I get the whole convenience aspect but is it healthy to stay hold up in your home and not have to leave? I say, No. You need fresh air, human interaction and social experiences to be a social being. Get off the couch and go shopping.
Working remotely from your home has been growing, where it is possible and appropriate, for quite a few years now. I experienced this working for a large corporation in a sales role in 1996 and it was very rare but now becoming more common. My point is, through technology, you can work from just about anywhere, even your car if someone else is driving. The disconnection you have, as subtle as it is can be a concern. Being plugged into the office and interacting face to face with fellow employees has some value. If you do work remotely, you must be disciplined and show up at your home office ready for work and separate the house distractions from your work.
Social Media has provided us with several ways to connect with people and stay involved in our friends and family’s lives. It has many advantages as I have a granddaughter 13 hours away and without Snapchat, I would not get to see her every day several times a day as she grows. Facetime for you Apple users is great. However, I don’t have to go anywhere to interact with anybody anytime. This leads me to think about how convenient it is to never leave your home or apartment to interact with people through live video feeds, posts, and conversations.
Is this all healthy as we have all these opportunities to stay right where we sit and do all of this? We as human beings need social interaction and it is healthy. I suggest that you will feel the enjoyment of shopping, working and sitting down to have a conversation so don’t miss any of those opportunities even though doing all of these things virtually is possible and popular.