Self-checkouts, Social Isolation, and Not Talking at the Grocery Store

I was walking out of the grocery store, lost in my head and thinking about recent political tumult, when I was jostled back to reality with a smiley comment: “Have a good day, sir. Enjoy your evening.”

I blubbered something in reply, managing to stammer out some half-hearted well-wish to the good-natured clerk. But this was more than my millennial-esque conversational deficiency. I realized that, at that point, I hadn’t spoken to another person during my entire shopping visit. I had become accustomed to being alone with my thoughts, even at the grocery store. My social skills had been dulled by the rise of the self-checkout.

Self-checkouts are a pain. The phrase “unexpected item in the bagging area” is the stuff of nightmares, and I have had countless shopping trips where I’ve waited inordinately long for an over-worked attendant to fix a buggy machine.

Annoyance is just the beginning. Self-checkouts are replacing employees and will likely continue to dramatically upend the job market and economy, probably pushing the rich richer and the poor poorer.

I’m not going to pretend to know about the future of automation. Truth is, I don’t know whether it’s good or bad, and I think most folks making those assessments are haplessly out of step.

Here’s what I do know: I don’t talk to people at the grocery store anymore.

Not only do I not talk to people, I don’t think about talking to people. I don’t consider what I will say to a cashier checking me out. I don’t run through the conversation where the nice cashier named Jim smiles and asks “how are you today?” and I say “Oh, I’m doing good. Hate this weather though,” and he goes “I know. Storm came in quick,” and we get to talking about deicers and best practices to prevent pipe bursting.

Of course, this reflects a greater trend of isolation. The share of Americans who say that they’re lonely has doubled since the 80s. The number of Americans with no close friends has tripled since 1985. And “zero” is American’s most common response when asked how many confidants they have. The benefits of having close friends is well documented, contributing across the board to better heart, brain, and mental health. This isolation is happening alongside the boom of retail automation. Research firms indicate that 2016 saw a 67 percent surge in self-checkout sales. Management at many big retailers are looking to grow the number of customers who use self-checkouts from around 30 percent up to 60 or 70 percent. And we’ve all heard of Amazon Go, stores that let you walk in, pick up your items, and walk out all without a checkout line (or a human interaction). The writing on the wall is clear: we’re just beginning to enter the era of the New Grocery Store, bright and shiny and full of isolated millennials.

Would cashier conversations in the checkout line combat the society-wide trend of increasing social isolation? It’s hard to say for sure, but it probably wouldn’t hurt.

The antidote to isolation is community, built up by the feeling of being a functional, important member of society. Community creates and strengthens friendships, and reinforces a general sense of reciprocity.

In Kwame Anthony Appiah’s book Cosmopolitanism, he asks “what do we owe strangers by virtue of our shared humanity?”

In my mind, the implication is we owe something. Do we owe a polite nod, smile, and a “How’s your day been?” while we wait in the slightly less efficient human-operated checkout line?

I’m not sure, but I know that when we talk in the grocery line not only do we acknowledge others’ humanity, we acknowledge our own. In our culture of isolation, that might be the most important thing we can do.

Though daunting as it may seem, I may choose a different checkout line during my next visit, smiling as the cashier recounts the woes of winter weather, bad drivers, and shows me — maybe in his smile or glint of his eyes — a piece of himself and our beautiful shared humanity.