How Online Purchases Add To Your Daily Stress Level
Learn to avoid the dark patterns shopping sites impose on you
Hello out there - in a rushed world,
Here comes your weekly permission to Un-rush and Stress Less.
Timeless insights and impulses on how the power of slow helps you grow - in a rushing world crushing your life
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INSIGHT
How Online Purchases Add To Our Daily Stress Level
The aggravating tricks of online shopping companies to annoy the hell out of you
Everything in our daily lives is turning into stress and pressure. The simple act (or so it should be) of purchasing tickets online, for events, travel, or buying the next hot need-to-have product turns into a nerve-wracking odyssey.
Companies or media sites try to push, distract, and lure you into fast purchases and try to slip you all kinds of extras.
Take the example of the current state of airline ticket purchases, where airlines set out to drive you crazy during the purchasing process, so you pay in the end extra for your tight seat, your checked and lost luggage, your stale sandwich and the right to have your five-year-old one sitting next to you (and we are talking the regular big airlines, who now apply the schemes of flow fare airlines), the following “dark pattern” elements can be applied to any other online buying procedures:
Misdirection
Nagging
Urgency
Price comparison prevention
add-on purchases
These are some of the dark patterns and selling techniques you need to look out for when trying to make an oh-so-convenient-quick-online purchase. Which are actually not so convenient anymore considering all those hoops and loops online purchasing sites make you go through.
The Dark Patterns Of The Online World
Dark patterns are design strategies used to trick consumers during their purchasing experience and guide them to decisions they would not make otherwise. This is stressful and enervating. The tactics are ranging from manipulation to deception. You feel under pressure and don’t have a chance to pay close attention.
What Can We Do To Prevent This Kind Of Stress?
Slowing down and taking the time to detect misdirection will make you happier eventually, than rushing through the pages and getting tricked in the end.
Send nagging emails straight to your spam folder.
Don’t react to all the urgent elements on a website.
Countdown timers, pop-up windows, or banners telling you to hurry to not lose the seat or the deal. This is pure stress. I ignore the timers and take my time to find the right purchase. This is more satisfying at the end because I didn't allow myself to be put under.
Be critical of what the websites tell you or prevent you from, like price comparison. You can do price comparisons as much as you want. Get away from the manipulative website and research a bit about pricing.
Ignore add-on purchases. Just know from the beginning what you want, and don’t let anyone trick you into loading more stuff you don’t need into your cart.
Read my whole article here >>>
IMPULSES
Curated stories on the topic of slowing down and stressing less, designed to open up new ways of looking at why you should give yourself permission to un-rush.
Simple And Cool Nutrition Advice From A 103-Year-Old
Dan Buettner of The Blue Zones, the areas in the world where people get to 100 years old and beyond, living healthy and happy, asks Dr. Gladys McGarey (@begladmd), a 103-year-old former doctor and author of the book The Well-Lived Life what advice she has for our diet.
Listen here on Instagram to the short conversation revealing her simple advice on what to eat…
Spoiler alert: Listen to your body. It is a matter of what your body tolerates.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe on Paying Attention
"Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least."
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
A Different Perspective On Stress
Here is a different perspective on stress: We stress about things that we care about. This is the key to turning “stress” into a positive outlook and the way you deal with it.
You can choose to think ‘I am not stressing about this’ because what you actually do is that you care about a person, your situation, a deal, an agenda. When you care about something, you put thought, energy, time, action, and effort into it. You care about a person, so you get all stressed out when this person is sick and you want to help. It is important to you to come on time to your appointment, you care about it, so you get all annoyed and stressed about the lame duck driver in front of you and start honking.
“People are disturbed not by a thing, but by their perception of a thing.” — Epictetus
We only stress about things that we care about. And then you have a choice. You can get stressed out, or you can choose to perceive the situation in a different, optimistic, positive way – because you understand that this is not stress but the attention you give to someone or something you care about.
Learn From Nature And Embrace The Cold Season
If we like it or not, summer and fall are over. At least in the Northern Hemisphere. And we can embrace some dark’y, cozy, freezy months….
Let’s stay positive and optimistic, and enjoy fireplaces, candlelight, wool blankets, hot chocolate, or Glühwein…
“Plants and animals don’t fight the winter; they don’t pretend it’s not happening and attempt to carry on the same lives that they lived in the summer. They prepare. They adapt … Once we stop wishing it was summer, winter can be a glorious season in which the world takes on a sparse beauty and even the pavements sparkle. It’s a time for reflection and recuperation, for slow replenishment, for putting your house in order.” - from Katherine May in her memoir “Wintering”.
Let’s slow down, reflect, be cozy, and enjoy returning to a warm house with a cold nose…
Have you been tracking me? Oy! All this Black Friday/Cyber Monday 💩!!