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You almost never see a clock at the mall
- 082349872349872 3y agoSounds like "infinite scroll" (and maybe even "personalised feed"?) were anticipated well before the smart phone ("fondleslab") era?
- ivanjermakov 3y agoI'm surprised tiktok/reels/shorts don't go fullscreen and hide status bar with clock.
- boomboomsubban 3y agoI like that they wrote this fine article, decided they needed to jazz it up a bit with some graphs, then decided to further make it pop by having seemingly the author pose as a topless DJ and a trumpeter.
- kleiba 3y ago[flagged]
- coldtea 3y agoIs it called "not hanging up a clock" in the literature? Is it just about clocks and hanging or not hanging them? Can the same effect occur without a clock involved? Does it describe something related to time perception and psychology, more general than Malls and their clocks? Is this Mall case just one specific example of that type of thing? If yes, then perhaps the more abstract name is more fitting.
- TonyTrapp 3y agoThere's way more tricks involved, the clock is one just one part of it. Not having any windows is another. More tricks are mentioned in the article.
- coldtea 3y agoWhat about at a store selling clocks in the Mall?
- dynisor 3y agoI worked selling watches for a time in my life and we were instructed that every watch on display had to be set and stopped at 10:10. Looking that up it seems to not have been specific to just the company I worked for.[1] So, counter-intuitively, a store selling clocks at the mall might not have the time displayed either. :) [1] https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01410/full https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10....
- bitbckt 3y agoFascinating. I don’t remember where I picked up the same habit of setting broken clocks to 10:10, but I do the same with a couple of grandfather clocks I own for sentimental reasons.
- lambertsimnel 3y agoBritish comedian Dave Gorman claims the clocks are set to that time (actually 10.08 in his example), because that makes them look happy, and they sell better that way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSCRifY0H3Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSCRifY0H3Y
- bitbckt 3y ago[flagged]
- klyrs 3y agoMall stores aren't selling high-end timepieces. If the clocks are running, they will visibly disagree unless you pay somebody to handle all of the merch every day, time that could be better spent looking bored.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- hcks 3y agoHas the author tried the trick called free will
- bsdpufferfish 3y agoA store owner does a marketing survey to find out what kind of music customers might like. The narrative is that he turns on a mind control device that makes you buy 5% more. With the debunking of "Thinking fast, and slow" this branch of psychology has hopefully run its course.
- selectodude 3y agoI assure you behavioral economics has not run its course.
- bsdpufferfish 3y agoThat's pretty broad. I am referring to the style of analysis that heavily attributes slight environmental priming over all others factors (character, education, religion, mood, etc).
- T3OU-736 3y ago"Thinking, Fast and Slow" has been debunked? Could you provide a bit more context?
- Strilanc 3y ago"Thinking, Fast and Slow" was written before the replication crisis was found. I wouldn't call it "debunked", but some of the research it used didn't replicate. For example, see https://replicationindex.com/2020/12/30/a-meta-scientific-perspective-on-thinking-fast-and-slow/ https://replicationindex.com/2020/12/30/a-meta-scientific-pe... : > It is likely that Kahneman’s book, or at least some of his chapters, would be very different from the actual book, if it had been written just a few years later. However, in 2011 most psychologists believed that most published results in their journals can be trusted. [...] > Kahneman also started to wonder whether some of the results that he used in his book were real. A major concern was that implicit priming results might not be replicable. [...] Anyways, just google "thinking fast and slow replication crisis" to get a bunch of information about this topic.
- karaterobot 3y ago> After 40 minutes, their brains effectively shut down. They struggled to make any logical decisions. I'm dubious. I haven't read the study they take this conclusion from, but it does not accord with my experience of the world. Your brain shuts down after 40 minutes in a supermarket, really? Anyway, it's about supermarkets and not malls, and most of the other evidence in this article is about casinos. Thin soup.
- sidewndr46 3y agoThe article says "Using MRIs to gauge". I've never seen a supermarket with an MRI. I have a seen a mall with an MRI, but it was more of an opportune space. It didn't face inwards into the mall concourse but was on the end. So in other words, the study probably took people from a mall or supermarket after a set amount of time and MRI'd them in exchange for $25 or something. I really doubt they measured anything relevant here.
- tzs 3y agoThey put people in an MRI and then asked them to decide between various discounts and buy-one-get-one-free offers like they would face in a supermarket.
- dylan604 3y agoBecause the experience of shopping in a super market or a mall is similar to laying in an MRI making all sorts of loud and disturbing noises? How they can even attempt to draw these conclusions is just farcical to me
- throwup238 3y agoObligatory dead salmon study link: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/scicurious-brain/ignobel-prize-in-neuroscience-the-dead-salmon-study/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/scicurious-brain/ignobe... fMRI studies are largely bullshit in the best of times. Using it to study an abstract effect is doubly so.
- effed3 3y agoThis apply not only the mall, even in a museum, disco, party, crowds, time perception will be altered, i suspet the key is in the moltitude moving around the person, this can be distracting, dimming the simple original task we have entering... random observation: mall with sad music sell better than those with happy music.. and so on. And this work in large numbers, having thousand entering such environments and with a substantial part being less or more influenced.
- Solvency 3y agoThis guy's entire post history is incoherent word salad from what appears to be a 1992 LLM bot.
- joebob42 3y agoWow thank you for pointing out. It's definitely an interesting read
- amenhotep 3y agoThis is such a rude thing to say. He has a very idiosyncratic style and makes a number of typos or errors, but his posts are quite clearly understandable imo and much more apposite and interesting than LLM output.
- Solvency 3y ago"Interesting article. Maybe taxes on (some) capitals/property is (quite) equivalent to expiration. Money (value) accumulated that not contribute to development (probably) must be taxed, to enter it in the development cycle. But made it expiring seems a waste of value, decreasing it's value with time maybe is better, to avoid it, must be invested in something productive.." Things (like) this set off (my) suspicion radar.
- mike_hock 3y agoSounds more like Engrish to me, but I did get what he wanted to say: - It's not limited to malls and casinos but applies to many other businesses - All the commotion distracts you from the task you originally had in mind when you entered the store - The effect is seen in large numbers of customers, i.e. it's a statistical effect.
- MrMan 3y ago[dead]
- nickjj 3y agoFrom the article: > Retail stores also use sound and music to manipulate the environment. A study from the early 1980s showed that slow-tempo music led to shoppers moving more slowly through the store and spending more money than if fast-tempo music played. I wonder how big this sample size was. The linked study is locked behind a login. The public page indicates maybe it was only 52 stores and it was done by surveying the managers of the store. They even explicitly mention it was a "belief". Too bad the next few sentences are behind a login because it sounds like that would shed more context. One of the local grocery stores here will play a bunch of 80s hits. They play Eye of the Tiger regularly. That song is one of the most purpose driven songs ever. If you had a mission to pick up 7 items in your list you can be sure you'll be done in record time. I will say this though, I've absolutely stayed longer in a store because I wanted to wait until I heard a specific part of a song but that feeling is completely unrelated to buying things.
- sillywalk 3y ago> One of the local grocery stores here will play a bunch of 80s hits. They play Eye of the Tiger regularly. That song is one of the most purpose driven songs ever. If you had a mission to pick up 7 items in your list you can be sure you'll be done in record time. As somebody who likes to finish their grocery shopping quickly, I picture myself in a video montage with that song as the soundtrack. Sidenote: I felt old when I heard Gangsta's Paradise being played in a grocery store about 10 years ago.
- victor22 3y ago[flagged]
- drcode 3y agoYou almost never see a clock anywhere except in places where people aren't allowed to check their phones (such as in schools or certain types of work spaces or a therapist office)
- grecy 3y agoI don't have a phone, and it's always an interesting exercise to either try to find a clock, or ask someone for the time. Thankfully there is no cell reception at our local ski mountain, so nobody carries a phone, and clocks are prominent.
- youcantcook 3y ago[dead]
- SoftTalker 3y agoThere's a thing called a wristwatch that solves your problem.
- BadHumans 3y agoWhy not just get a watch at that point?
- nfieidnrn 3y agonot whimsical and quirky enough
- analog31 3y agoAnecdotally I wear a watch and the ski mountain is one place where it's a lot more convenient to glance at the clocks the bottom of the lifts.
- bluGill 3y agoI hate the feeling of something on my wrist. I used to have a pocket watch, but once cell phones became pocket sized I switched.
- 3y ago
- schindlabua 3y agoI was without a phone for a month last year and it made me realize that there aren't clocks anywhere anymore. And if they are, they're not working.
- Tommah 3y agoI still see a lot of outdoor signs that alternate between showing the time and the temperature. They're usually outside banks, and near apartment buildings sometimes. Libraries probably still have clocks; they want people to know how close they are to closing time.
- schindlabua 3y agoMight just be the city I'm in (Vienna). The city put up these huge pillars with big clocks all around town, but this weekend I was on the biggest shopping street in Vienna and the clock showed 12:00 at 3pm. There's a watch shop I drive by regularly that has a big clock next to their store sign and it just doesn't work.
- flembat 3y agoJust as well given that no two clocks in a modern town centre ever agree with each other.
- jeffgreco 3y agoWhere do you see clocks?
- biscuits1 3y agoYou almost always see an abandoned mall in an American suburb.
- biscuits1 3y ago"Time is passing, are you?" You almost always see a Simplex Clock in each American classroom. How about we remove them - what would be the effect?
- sgbeal 3y ago> How about we remove them - what would be the effect? It would eliminate the only reason kids have to _want_ to be able to read an analog clock ;).
- jabroni_salad 3y agoThe mall might be abandoned, but the tj maxx is still thriving and the psychological concept is the same.
- sgbeal 3y agoWhere does anyone actually see a clock nowadays? i haven't had a clock in my home since i threw out my digital alarm clock when moving in 2004.
- bigstrat2003 3y agoI see plenty of clocks in people's homes. Libraries too. I don't think they're all that uncommon.
- nottorp 3y agoHm i have a wall clock in the living room, one in my home office and one of those alarm clocks that project the time on the ceiling in the bedroom. Mind, the wall clocks are mostly decoration, it's only the bedroom one that really gets any use. Even you probably have a clock on the microwave and the coffee machine in the kitchen :)
- WWLink 3y agoI just got one for my desk. Sure the time is on the corner of my computer screen, and on my watch and my phone, but I'm not wearing my watch right now and my phones are just chilling on my desk. I can see the clock from across the room. I have a clock in my bedroom, too. It has a cute rainbow light frame that serves as a nice little ambient night light. Since the plug is behind my bed I unplug it when there's lightning nearby, and those nights I end up missing my clock.
- someperson 3y agoA lot of the tricks described in the article are relevant to programmers trying to achieve flow state.
- cafard 3y agoThe mall? These days I almost never see a mall. And in age when everybody carries a cell phone, how important is a clock?
- Kwpolska 3y agoEver heard of wristwatches? Or phones that show the current time prominently on the lock screen?
- justsomehnguy 3y agoSince ~2003 I didn't wear a watch, because I always had a clock with me. But a decade+ later I wear them again, because the process of checking the current time on the wrist watches is one of the easiest[0] and less obstructive things. So if I need to track the time then I just need to have a vague idea of it in my mind and therefore I would just occasionally look it up and have at least some understanding of how much time I spent doing something. Well, most of the time. Doesn't work good in a bar, but still does work. And for the shops/mall and whatever - just write a goddamn list of the items beforehand! Be it a paper list[1] or an app in your mobile clock you always have on you, you would check out the items in no time and (if you are living not in the US) you would even know how much you would spend on it even before you enter the shop. [0] well, partially, because I wear black Axiom, heh [1] I recently bought a thin pocket sized notebook (not moleskin! soft cover) and an automatic pencil. Yes, a decade+ later. The most amusing situation was recently when I needed to do some explanations, the notebook (14", an electronic one) was on the last breath, phone was on the charger quite far away and I just casually pull out that paper notebook and a pencil - my visavi just burst out laughing. The best part is what yes, the pen on paper did make the explanations fast and easy!
- buggeryorkshire 3y agoI used to live in Cheltenham UK, and one of the malls there had this clock as a feature https://www.regentarcade.co.uk/LocalInformation https://www.regentarcade.co.uk/LocalInformation
- pricechild 3y agoI always see someone post that before Telford's: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-frog-clock https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/the-frog-clock
- buggeryorkshire 3y agoHa, it's the same artist who did both, TiL.
- anotheruser13 3y agoQuite a few Japanese malls and department stores have very intricate clocks.
- 486sx33 3y agoLas Vegas used to be a lot more strict about no cellphones (camera phones). As you were not allowed to take photos or video inside a casino. At some point the tsunami of every phone has a camera, and the Japanese tourists who take pictures and video everything sort of took over. I always figured it was partly to avoid the clocks and keep you in the fantasy.
- pizzafeelsright 3y agoAs someone who got thrown out for camera and video it was the thoughts of exploiting to cheat. After the casinos were saturated, the enforcement changed.
- bluGill 3y agoThere have been machines where the random number generator was predictable. The solution was petter random numbers.
- whaleofatw2022 3y agoIt's a weird industry. I only know a little about it from a friend that worked for the gaming commission of our state... But fun fact, the code (at least in my state) gets audited and one of the things they were doing even 15ish years ago was pulling EEPROMs out and running through a machine to make sure the final hash is an approved, audited progam validated to have fair payout logic.
- pizzafeelsright 3y agoState controlled - yes. Indian/Native American land or International waters? Not State controlled.
- bluGill 3y agoIndian/Native American land is still semi controlled by the US government. While they have a lot of leeway they generally are pretty good. They are making a ton of money and they know even a strong rumor of something going on would kill them.
- mococa 3y agoSame for casinos.
- g-b-r 3y agoWell anecdotally I did find it harder to find clocks in malls than other places, some years ago, at times when e.g. the phone was dead (and even in watch stores they're most of the times set at random hours)
- xethos 3y ago> even in watch stores they're most of the times set at random hours I can't imagine the proprietor showing, rather decisively, which of his products drift. Especially considering half the time, you can't tell how long ago it was set (within the current DST season or not), and so how much it drifts per day
- WWLink 3y agoIDK. I've been in a timex store before where they actually DID put the same time on all the watches. Of course pranksters would enable the alarm on a lot of those watches lol.
- Tade0 3y agoI noticed this as well, but to me a mall is less like a casino and more like a simulated city - with notable exception of a clocktower, which is nowhere to be seen. Early designs show this in detail, as they were more like sections of cities with skylights between the buildings: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galleria_Umberto_I https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galleria_Umberto_I
- DonHopkins 3y ago>Retail stores also use sound and music to manipulate the environment. A study from the early 1980s showed that slow-tempo music led to shoppers moving more slowly through the store and spending more money than if fast-tempo music played. (There wasn’t a huge difference in results between slow-tempo music and no music at all.) >“It’s almost mood maintenance,” says Theodore Noseworthy, a York University business professor who has studied the impacts of sound. “They’re trying to keep you in this positive state and almost in flow [so] that if you’re shopping, [you] just stay shopping.” Dawn Of The Dead - Mall Music Collection / George A. Romero / 1978 / Horror Movie Music https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1NWcGZGD-M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1NWcGZGD-M >Unlike any other video on YouTube, this mall music collection provides all tracks heard within the Monroeville Mall in George Romero's 1978 zombie classic 'Dawn Of The Dead'. Finding the best quality for these tracks let alone their full versions wasn't easy. After a lot of research and editing, I give you the best I could put together. This cliché Muzak really makes the film what it is and captures a sense of slapstick comedy very much present in the movie. As far as I'm aware, these were real tracks heard in the actual mall back in the 1970s. TRACK LISTING (HEARD IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE): 1. Victorian Vintage 2. Shopping Music #1 3. Shopping Music #2 4. African Drums 5. We Are The Champions 6. Ragtime Razzamatazz 7. Tango Tango 8. Fugarock 9. Restaurant music 10. The Gonk (The Gonk is by far the zombiest: https://youtu.be/t1NWcGZGD-M?t=1051 https://youtu.be/t1NWcGZGD-M?t=1051 )
- stephenr 3y agoI was once onsite at a casino for basically 7 days straight (barring trips off site for breakfast and some dinners) while working on a client project. Not having clocks is one thing. Unlike a mall, the casino had zero natural light inside. Apparently, seeing that it's dark (or light again) outside might be a hint it's time to leave, and that's bad for business.
- AlbertCory 3y agoThe author is reaching. Casinos are well-known for this. As for shopping malls: they're close to being the answer to a "remember when?" question. Like, "remember when you got letters from people you knew in the mail?"
- cookie_monsta 3y agoHmm.. where I live (urban Australia) shopping malls have gone through much the same process as hardware stores - the big ones have muscled out the small ones. But those big ones are heaving every time I go, even mid week during the day. As a side note, my teenagers who are both very astute online shoppers will often go to the mall with no intention of buying anything, I guess for the same reasons as teenagers have always gone to the mall. It's a little early to be calling the demise of the mall, imo.
- WWLink 3y agoThat's kinda how it works in the US but the big malls are very quiet in the middle of the workday
- AlbertCory 3y agonot dead, but still not totally great: https://www.resonai.com/blog/mall-foot-traffic https://www.resonai.com/blog/mall-foot-traffic
- bigger_cheese 3y agoAlso Australian, about 10 years ago my local council aggressively installed parking meters everywhere around the shopping mall and they have steadily jacked up the price ever since. Public transport where I am is crap, so driving is essentially the only realistic option. this has pretty much killed the entire area.
- standardUser 3y agoI have a cool clock I was going to put up in my apartment, but I decided against it because I sometimes have late night parties and the presence of a clock seems like a buzzkill for many of these same reasons. In fact, I'd even say that having fun and not knowing/caring what time it is go hand-in-hand. And anytime I need to pay close attention to the time is almost certainly a stressful time, not a fun one. As far as shopping - a sometimes tedious chore - I welcome whatever social engineering they can muster to make it a more automatic experience. Same with casinos. I'm not there to be level-headed and use good judgement. I'm there to be joyfully manipulated.
- twic 3y agoThe one kind of late-night party where you absolutely want a clock is a new year's eve party! Some friends of mine often host such a party. They have an antique grandfather clock, which is ideal for this purpose. Except it's in poor shape, and usually stopped. So now a traditional element of the party is one of them standing on the arm of a sofa wrangling the clock at a few minutes to midnight, desperately trying to unstop the flow of time before we run out.
- boringuser2 3y agoI want to know more about your demographic profile. The concept of having frequent time-ambivalent late night parties as an adult with a job is absurd to me. Do you have a trust-fund? Are you in your 20s?
- standardUser 3y agoI am in my early 40's and I live alone in Manhattan. Most of my friends are late-20's to mid-40's. Despite having very little wealth and absolutely no family money I am still something of a spendthrift, though I enjoy it.
- infradig 3y agoWelcome to the Gruen transfer.
- jiveturkey 3y agotvOS hasn't had a clock until the most recent major release.
- rocky1138 3y agoFrom the article: > No other industry builds a world designed to maintain a customer’s fantasy so that they continue to partake in an activity that, in the long run, advantages the house. Videogames
- ehnto 3y agoYep, there is even a lot of casino tricks in video games these days. I wonder if the casinos could take some lessons from videogames at this point? The battlepass and daily task rewards are both designed to get you in the door every day.
- torcete 3y agoI believe what the article explains is the reason why a plane ticket with a stopover is cheaper than a direct flight. Airport are big shopping centres with captive and bored clientele. Even more, I find some airports (e.g. Gatwick in the UK) extremely oppressive. No natural light, closed space and the only way to escape is to expend money eating/drinking/shopping.
- woobar 3y agoI don't think that's the reason. First, airlines don't own airports. So they don't benefit from your spending there. Second, they pay to airports directly (as in gate/landing fees) and indirectly by having to hire staff at the airport. Flights with connection may cost less for various reasons. I'd think route optimization and price discrimination (direct is shorter and more desirable) would be the most popular ones.
- macinjosh 3y agoThey do have stores full of watches in most malls though.
- starky 3y agoMy first thought was about this title was how the mall near where I grew up had a centerpiece water clock that chimed and ran a special cycle every 15 minutes or so. Unfortunately they removed it when they renovated a number of years ago.
- Waterluvian 3y agoI learned this line being about the casino. My childhood mall had beautiful clocks.
- Havoc 3y agoThat feels like a 90s era insight. Nobody thinking about time looks around - they pull out a phone
- madcaptenor 3y agoYou rarely see a clock at the airport, even though most people at the airport is very interested in what time it is because they have a plane to catch. (I’ll concede that people who just finished the last flight of their trip might not care.)
- pygar 3y agoMaybe this is a maintenance thing? If the clock is broken/wrong at a plausible time, you might not notice it until it's too late. Better to not have one and make people double check their own time.
- madcaptenor 3y agoThis makes sense. (If it is indeed the case - see the sibling comment to yours, it’s possible I’m mistaken.)
- dredmorbius 3y agoVirtually all airport schedule signage (arrivals, departures) tells the time. Which is to say that clocks are integrated into the most salient signage furniture. The pervasive televisions also show signage, and at ticket desks there are often clocks which show international time in major destinations.
- madcaptenor 3y agoI hear what you’re saying. What I guess I meant - and I was not that precise - is that such clocks are usually small, a little display at the bottom of the arrivals/departures board. I should just be able to look up and know what time it is. Perhaps I am just unusual.
- dredmorbius 3y agoErm: televisions also show time, was what I'd meant to write.
- stevage 3y agoI just don't think there are very many clocks in public anywhere.
- ericzawo 3y agoThe mall in my hometown had a giant fully functional clock tower at its centre. It would chime and you could hear it everywhere, too. It was pretty nice, actually.
- aussieguy1234 3y agoSo, when i'm up late at night working on my side project, should I hide my system clock? Will this keep me in the zone for longer? I'd set some kind of alarm to avoid staying up too late.
- djmips 3y agoClosest mall to me. https://www.flickr.com/photos/alykat/179446667 https://www.flickr.com/photos/alykat/179446667
- josefresco 3y agoI might be in the minority but I love this feeling. Something about being in a casino and having no real difference between night and day intrigues me. I even looked into polyphasic sleeping (sleeping in small bursts) before I discovered it’s complete bullshit.