One thing in particular that I hate about shopping, when
accompanying my wife, for example, is the music in each store.
Even grocery stores play music, usually contemporary popular music, most of
which I don’t recognize. Probably people in marketing have discovered that
shoppers respond, often unconsciously, to upbeat music. It has probably been
proven that consumers spend less time making a decision when music is played in
the background.
Actually, according to the research found on the Internet,
fast tempo music leads to more impulse shopping while slow tempo music causes
shoppers to linger and to spend more money as a result. The volume of the music
plays a part, too. Older customers, according to the research, prefer to have
the music in the background and are more apt to leave stores where the music is
in the foreground. Younger customers, on the other hand, prefer to have the
music in the foreground and will often remain in a store to hear the music.
James J. Farrell in One Nation Under Goods: Malls and the Seductions of
American Shopping, a booklength examination of how Americans are manipulated by
the marketplace, admits that music “increas[es] our productivity as consumers
by increasing our proclivity to purchase products.” Our response to music is
one way out of many that consumers are manipulated to act in illogical ways, Farrell says.
I am particularly bothered by loud music in restaurants.
Many of my experiences in restaurants, as of late, have proven to be unpleasant
because of the loud music. I don’t know what restaurants hope to achieve by
having the volume turned up. According
to the research, customers drink more and eat faster when the music is loud. A
restaurant with loud music is also perceived as being more fun. A restaurant
critic in Washington, D.C., I have discovered, rates restaurants on not only
the quality of the food but also the amount of noise. Someone younger
will find loud music more stimulating and more inviting. I think of loud music as
annoying. It is often difficult to talk to the person next to me because of the
noise. I much prefer to take my food somewhere outside or to sit in the car
while overlooking a pleasant scene.
Noise pollution is such a fact of our lives. I have spent
much of my adult life searching for a quiet environment. Sometimes, ironically,
I want nothing more than to fully experience the nuances of my music. At other
times, I want to hear nothing more than bird songs or the rhythm of cicadas,
their songs rising and falling in the evening. Within this crowded world of
ours, we should be able to know quiet at times and should have some options on
what we allow to enter our ears.
