Shopping

Shopping can allow us the opportunity to interact with other people, or at least avoid isolation.  We spend so much time on our electronic devices, that we may need to find ways and reasons to get away from looking at screens, and to be amongst others.  Being in a coffee shop on our device is amongst others in one sense, but it is still isolation.  We do not have much opportunity to relate to others in the coffee shop.  Going to a neighborhood store is, well, neighborly.  Ordering online isolates.  Big box stores are less neighborly then mom and pop shops.  I like New York City because it still has lots of small specialty shops, though these are fewer and fewer ascents rise.  I was in a restaurant in Florida where you simply order from a touch screen and someone brings you your food.  No waitperson interaction.  One of my best experiences of de-isolation was in a restaurant with a common table.  You ordered your food from a counter, but then sat down at a table with people you did not know.  It was a round table too.  The assumption was that such people wanted to meet and talk or else they would not have chosen that experience.  Computer technology can be our friend, or sometimes not.