Are we breeding a new generation of laziness?

When I was a child my mum would do the food shop for the whole family. This meant my sister and I were usually roped into going with mum so that we could ‘help’, although to be honest with you, I’m not actually sure how much help we really were as we wandered the aisles and just begged our mum for this or that!

We probably annoyed her quite a bit as we had a tendency to mess around and then inevitably we’d have a fit of giggles for no reason at all! This is actually, probably, one of the reasons why I do my food shop online come to think of it! Anyhow, back to the story. My sister and I would eventually end helping as we’d load the various items into numerous carrier bags and then pop the bags into the trolley which then went into the car boot before arriving home to empty them onto the kitchen counters in search of chocolate, leaving mum to unpack everything on her own!

Aside from the food shop, I also remember my parents dragging my sister and I around garden centres, hardware stores, carpet stores and many of other types of stores! 

It seems that over the last twenty five years though things have changed a lot and I’m not sure if this change is good or not, although I imagine there’s probably a pretty even split between those who think it’s better and those who don’t. 

What am I talking about? Convenience and laziness. Two things that go hand in hand and make me wonder if we’re breeding a new generation of laziness. 

This all started when I was scrolling through my Facebook feed one evening. I wasn’t looking for anything in particular, just passing the time I guess. What happened to having a hobby or reading a book? I guess that’s a whole other post in itself! Anyway, I came across a video of a ‘drive-thru supermarket’. 

Basically, a Russian inventor has come up with the idea which means you simply drive up to the conveyor belt where everything you need and everything you’d find in a supermarket is presented to you on cascading shelves. All you need to do is roll down your window, reach over to the shelf and put what you want onto the conveyor belt before driving up to the window to pay and collect your purchases.

At first I was horrified by this concept!

Is this the end of people actually walking into a supermarket to do their food shop? 

Could people get any lazier and possibly any more anti-social? 

These were some of the thoughts that ran through my head, but then I wondered if this is really any different to the way in which we do our shopping nowadays anyway?

I can’t remember the last time that I went into a supermarket to do a full food shop. I do my food shopping on an app on my phone and get it delivered right to my door at a time that’s convenient for me. 

I don’t need to leave the house. I don’t need to speak to anyone other than the delivery driver to acknowledge his presence and I can pack all the shopping away whilst the kids are at school. What could be better than that?

When it comes to Christmas and birthday present shopping, the majority of it for me is all done online. I don’t need to leave the house. I can simply search for what I want, buy it and wait for it to arrive. The same goes for clothes shopping too!

When I first did my food shop online, I thought it was brilliant – I still do – but I can’t help feeling a little uneasy about the fact that when my girls are older everything could just be presented to them in one easy, convenient parcel. It terrifies me a little to think about what the future will be like for them. 

Is all of this convenience a good thing? In some ways, yes,. It means we have more time to dedicate to our families. It even helps us to save money as we make more conscious decisions about our spending, but is it lazy? 

When I think to back to my child hood and being dragged around the shops by my parents, it makes me feel a little sad that my children haven’t really experienced that too. I know that sounds odd and my inner child is screaming at me right now for thinking like this, but I can’t help it!

What do you think? Is it a good or a bad thing?