New consumption sites and products are often a hot cultural phenomenon. Many people will line up for hours, even camp out overnight, just to be among the first to be at such an event or to get such a product. This is clear from the crowd in Beijing, China, in line for a chance to buy the latest iPhone.
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Sociologists are understandably interested in these developments in the realm of consumption. Early sociologists completed many studies of work, production, factories, and factory workers. Today’s sociologists continue to study work-related issues, but they are devoting increasing attention to consumption in general (Warde 2017) and more specifically to such phenomena as online shopping, done increasingly through the use of smartphones (Kim et al. 2017); the behavior of shoppers in more material locales such as department stores (Miller 1998); and the development of more recent consumption sites, such as fast-food restaurants (Ritzer 2019) and shopping malls (Ritzer 2010b). All these have become increasingly global phenomena. The most popular destination for visitors to Barcelona is not one of Antoni Gaudí’s amazing architectural creations but rather a new outlet mall on the outskirts of the city (Mount 2014). Online shopping is increasingly popular in many places, including in India and especially in China (Bearak 2014; Wang and Pfanner 2013). The growth of online shopping in developed countries, and even more in less developed countries, has been made possible by the massive expansion and growing popularity of smartphones.
McDonaldization
Ritzer’s study of a major site for consuming food—the fast-food restaurant—led to the development of the concept of McDonaldization, or the process by which the rational principles of the fast-food restaurant are coming to dominate more and more sectors of society and more societies throughout the world (Ritzer 2019; Ritzer and Miles, 2019; for a number of critical essays on this perspective, see Ritzer 2010c). This process leads to the creation of rational systems—not only fast-food restaurants, but also, among others, online shopping sites (see Trending later in this chapter)—that have four defining characteristics:
• Efficiency. The emphasis is on the use of the quickest and least costly means to whatever end is desired. It is clear that employees of fast-food restaurants work efficiently: Burgers are cooked and assembled as if on an assembly line, with no wasted movements or ingredients. Similarly, customers are expected to spend as little time as possible in the fast-food restaurant. Perhaps the best example of efficiency is the drive-through window, a highly organized means for employees to dole out meals in a matter of seconds.
• Calculability. You hear a lot at McDonald’s about quantities: how large the food portions are—the Big Mac—and how low the prices are—the dollar breakfast. You don’t hear as much, however, about the quality of the restaurant’s ingredients or its products. Similarly, you may hear about how many burgers are served per hour or how quickly they are served, but you don’t hear much about the skill of employees. A focus on quantity also means that tasks are often done under great pressure. This means that they are often done in a slipshod manner.
• Predictability. McDonaldization ensures that the entire experience of patronizing a fast-food chain is nearly identical from one geographic setting to another—even globally—and from one time to another. When customers enter a McDonald’s restaurant, employees ask what they wish to order, following scripts created by the corporation. For their part, customers can expect to find most of the usual menu items. Employees, following another script, can be counted on to thank customers for their order. Thus, a highly predictable ritual is played out in the fast-food restaurant.
• Control. In McDonaldized systems, technology exerts a good deal of control over people, processes, and products. French fry machines limit what employees can do and control any remaining tasks. They buzz when the fries are done and even automatically lift them out of the hot oil when they’ve reached just the right amount of crispiness. Workers must load fry baskets with uncooked fries and unload them when the baskets emerge from the oil. The automatic fry machine may save time and prevent accidents, but it limits and dictates employee actions and leaves them with little meaningful work. Similarly, the drive-through window can be seen as a technology that ensures that customers dispose of their own garbage, if only by dumping it in the backseats of their cars or on the roadside.
Paradoxically, rationality often seems to lead to its exact opposite—irrationality. Just consider the problems of meaningless work, roadside litter due to drive-through services at fast-food restaurants, or the societal problems associated with childhood obesity, which has been blamed, in part, on the ubiquity of fast food. Another of the irrationalities of rationality is dehumanization. Fast-food employees are forced to work in dehumanizing jobs, which can lead to job dissatisfaction, alienation, and high turnover rates. Fast-food customers are forced to eat in dehumanizing settings, such as in the cold and impersonal atmosphere of the fast-food restaurant, in their cars, or on the move as they walk down the street. As more of the world succumbs to McDonaldization, dehumanization becomes increasingly pervasive.
Critiquing Consumption
The sociological study of consumption sites involves, among many other things, a critical look at the ways in which they are structured. (The previous discussion of the irrationalities associated with McDonaldized settings is one example of such a critical perspective.) These sites may be set up to lead people to consume certain things and not others, to consume more than they might have intended, and to go into debt (Brubaker, Lawless, and Tabb 2012; Manning 2001; Marron 2009; Ritzer 1995). Consider Shoedazzle (www.shoedazzle.com), a website that uses commercials and “style quizzes” to recruit new members. Shoedazzle highlights an “exclusive” VIP membership status on its webpage, which anyone can join. Making its members feel special through seemingly personalized style quizzes and VIP memberships lures consumers into buying more shoes (and other products) than they really need.
Sociologists are also interested in how consumers use shopping malls and e-tailers in ways that were not anticipated by their designers. For example, people often wander through shopping malls and their many shops, which have been designed to spur consumption, without buying anything. Defunct malls are serving as impromptu skate parks. Students are using Amazon.com as a source for term-paper bibliographies rather than buying the books. Travelers are using internet sites such as Expedia and KAYAK to compare prices but then buying airplane tickets on the airlines’ own websites.
Social change continues. The Great Recession and its aftermath altered many things, including the degree to which society is dominated by consumption. Even today, long after the onset of the recession in 2007 and its supposed end, many U.S. consumers remain reluctant to spend money, or at least as much as they did in the past, on consumption (Kurtz 2014). As a result, consumption sites have experienced great difficulties. Many outdoor strip malls and some indoor malls have emptied; they have become “dead malls” (as documented on the site http://deadmalls.com). Many of the malls that continue to exist have numerous vacant stores, including abandoned large department stores. Las Vegas, which has long been a capital for the consumption of entertainment and high-end goods and services, has been hurting (Nagourney 2013). Casinos in Atlantic City, New Jersey, are being shuttered, and there are those who want to see the city become more like the simpler beach community it once was (Hurdle 2014). Dubai, aspiring to be the consumption capital of the East, hit a financial rough spot in 2009 and has yet to recover completely from it. It seems possible, although highly unlikely, that even though we entered the consumption age only about half a century ago, we now may be on the verge of what could be called the “postconsumption