It’s about 31 years since I completed my PhD thesis. Titled Fractured Neck of Femur - An Operational Study, it’s a presentation of my research which used fractured neck of femur as an indicator of how the health service was performing. That is, as a tracer condition. According to this concept, I view supermarkets as a tracer for our society at large. And ‘buy and large’ (pun intended) it’s not a pretty picture. I’ve written here of some of tricks and ploys supermarkets use to entice people to buy what they don’t need. Buying what isn’t needed, is the ethos and rationale of the materialism/capitalism paradigm. Which is why the supermarket is such a superb tracer for society. Then in yesterday’s Age I read, and was appalled by, this article. Screens and GPS devices on shopping trolleys! Yikes! It’ll be expensive to implement. But if, as US trials suggest, the sales in participating stores rose by 10% and sales of featured products rose by 30-40%, the initial outlay will be recouped soon enough. I swear that if this gear’s in a supermarket where I shop, if I don’t use my indelible marker pen to good effect, I won’t look at the screen on my trolley. And if that’s the way society in general is headed, then I despair. Screw MediaCart. Whatever will they think of next? Don’t answer that – it’s a rhetorical question.
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