There was something sad about it, but it just happened spontaneously: I hoped Albert Heijn’s self-scanning self-examination had a great day.

You can attribute that to the fact that I have a knack for fleshing things out. My car is called Francois. I greet my house every day. As a child, I once carried a soccer ball under my arm at a camp site, because I thought it was sad that another kid had left that ball alone. The other day I said sorry to my radio for accidentally breaking the volume knob.

I told him “it was by accident”. I imagined him gently nodding his head – I have a tolerant radio.

The day I spoke to the self checkout counter, my odd counter was in minus. I had a work day at home and I didn’t even know if I brushed my teeth that day (I think I did) (I wish I did). It was 4pm and the first anonymous person I could have a small chat with was the cashier.

It has been replaced by a do-it-yourself display.

Then that screen for me became the volleyball for Tom Hanks in the movie forsaken. In it, Hanks ends up on a desert island after a plane crash and when he finds a ball, he draws it and that ball becomes his friend who talks to death with him. He had something bad.

Self-lenders are parasites eager to take over the world, giving a middle finger to what makes us human. IKEA, Kruidvat and Albert Heijn are all planning expansion. In 2023, you no longer have to greet or look at anyone when you shop.

We don’t know, but we’re doing ourselves a great disservice. Our brain activity is greater with face-to-face contact than it is when we see or talk to each other online. Just talking to someone for ten minutes improves our cognitive function, which improves our memory. Through it we create new brain cells. Also – and especially – when it comes to connecting with new people.

Lies in volatility: friendliness in topical issues. It’s spontaneous: don’t expect it, get it. It is in sweetness: not knowing each other, but seeing each other. This is why I was so glad that the self-checks in the procedure were replaced by people again. Listen! The de-automation of society has begun! Long live the incarnation of D-Man!

Until I understood what it was all about. The procedure would have preferred to keep self-checks because of the cost savings, but there was too little control, too much rifling. Social connection takes time and money which is why we have sent it to the fringes of the community. You can meet each other spontaneously online. or at a community center designated for this purpose. in the peer group. But not in a store, one of the few places everyone goes to every day, but where money is the first, second, and third priority.

We are the oxygen to each other’s souls, but we give each other less and less of it. There is something sad about it, but it just happens naturally.