Online Shopping vs Traditional Shopping

Besides from turkey, what is the other most memorable thing you had done during this thanksgiving break? That would most probably be the shopping bags you bought from Black Friday. During this thanksgiving, I went down to New York to meet up with my high school friends, and wanted to get some good deals from the Black Friday discounts. However, throughout the weekend, I only bought a t-shirt; but interestingly, I actually bought more clothes online in my hotel room during the Black Friday. Isn’t that weird? This has make me come to realize that how internet has transformed the shopping habits of people nowadays.

In traditional shopping, you simply take a ride in your car to your favorite shopping center or store and you buy what you want or need. You can examine the quality of the product or services from the retailer and decide whether you will purchase the product. You can pay with cash or credit card. In some instances you can even pay with a check. You do get the opportunity to see the product before you purchase it and you can keep an eye on it until you finally own it.

But after the rise of internet, online shopping has become more and more popular among the younger generation. Compare to traditional shopping, online shopping provides something that traditional shopping could never give, instant access to all shops. Unlike traditional shopping, people could open 20 windows of online shopping stores and browse through all their favorite items. What if you can’t find the store that you want? GOOGLE it. People are no longer limited to geographical location of the stores, they can buy products that are located in different parts of the world. Except for the advantage of high variety and time saving, we can easily find promotion on the internet compare to shopping traditionally. All you need to is to type promotion codes on google for your particular store, and most likely you will be able to buy an item cheaper than actually shopping in an actual store. 

Although online shopping does provide many advantages over traditional shopping, there are other risk factors too. One thing that most people concern about online shopping would be the quality of the product. When you are shopping online, you will not be able to touch, smell or feel the product itself. The quality of the product can’t be guaranteed. Security could also be a problem. When you find good deals on the web, sometimes you would question yourself whether this is a legit website, and whether it is trustworthy; as fake online shops can be easily found nowadays.  Thirdly, although u can access to the information of your product instantly, you could access to your product instantly. There could be many different risk factors come with shipping a product from a site.

To conclude, we can find that with the rise of internet, online shopping has become an important medium between customers and products. It has provided a different way to shop. Unlike transportation, such as cars, trains and buses, you can access your store in less than 10 seconds by sitting down on your comfy chair at home. However, online shopping also has some cultural impact on nowadays society. Do you still remember the time when you were really excited to go to Toys “R” Us during the weekend when you were young? With the online shopping getting more convenient, this weekend activity might significantly decrease. Shopping might no longer become a family activity during the weekend. Lazy people no longer need to get out of their house and shop. Women exercise rate might also decrease (consider traditional shopping as an exercise). Online shopping has created a new era of shopping. Can't wait for Cyber Monday!

Time to MOVE YOUR BODY

Reading so many blogs about how music can be a medium of expressing yourself, I start to wonder what is the best way to express yourself through music.  A lot of people might immediately say singing, since it is really natural to sing while you hear music that touches you. However, I think the best way and also the most elegant form of expressing your own self is through dancing.

Although there isn’t a specific point or time when people started dancing, in ancient time, people have already begun dancing for spiritual reasons. Dancing is a form of medium that connects Gods with human and also their joys for God. They felt like by moving their bodies, they are giving out more emotions to God than just praying. However, as time goes by, dancing is no longer only associated with spiritual reasons; in fact, it has become an entertainment or a sport or activity to express one self.

During the last few years, dancing has becoming a really hot subject. When the movie, Step Up and the reality TV Show, America’s Best Dance Crew were launched, dancing has become so popular among the society that dancing was almost everywhere. By just watching a Youtube dancing video, it might already make you want to move your body. At one point, I actually want to take a dancing lesson too.  Dancing has become so popular that it did not only particularly bring up one dancing style, such as hip hop, it also brought up other dancing style like waltz, break dance, modern, and jazz. When another TV show So You Think You Can Dance launched, the heat for dancing has raised up even more rapidly.

The fascinating part for dancing is that you can use your body to express what you want to say even if there is a language barrier. Not like words and language, dancing can express your feelings to different cultural people. People can feel your emotions and power through the movement of your body. Therefore, personally, I think dancing is the best form of medium to express one self. And with the influence of the recent TV shows, mass media has also shaped how people perceive dancing. However, if I have to list one artist that influenced many people through dancing and how they perceive dancing, I would definitely say Michael Jackson. There can’t be Michael Jackson without his dance moves. His emotions, power and message behind his music would never be fully delivered if dancing was not included. This clearly illustrated the point McLuhan described in his article Understanding the Media, where medium is the message, and not the content it delivers.

Step Up 2
America's Best Dance Crew
Evolution of Dance
Michael Jackson