Alyx Woodward (obsolete) @Alyx@computerfairi.es

Twitter thread with advice on selecting good mason bee houses and avoiding harmful ones (content warning: insects, parasites incl. image) https://twitter.com/colinpurrington/status/1124354705256321024

From @starwall starting with https://radical.town/@starwall/102123790865310672
====
every single aspect of supermarkets are designed to get you to buy shit
====
grocery shopping is designed in a meticulous way to get us to spend as much time in there shopping as possible, from the colors and lighting, to the very floorplan, the thing is a stage designed to get your psychology to buy things
====
It's easier to enter a grocery store than to leave and that's by design. sometimes there are even one way doors, and after that the first thing you're going to encounter in any supermarket is likely the produce department. the well lit, good smelling, glossy stage set is meant to make all those sensory impacts look as inviting as possible. flowers likewise are kept near the front of the store.
====
the thing is designed to least convenience you without you noticing, that's why the dairy is almost always in the back. your "just milk and eggs grocery trip" is stretched out so you spend the maximum time in the store before you hit the dairy section, and get to the checkout. the thing is designed like a maze where you enter, have to get through rows and rows of snacks and appliances to get to the milk and eggs, and then spend more rows and rows of travel through clothes and god knows what else before you finally get to the checkout--which itself is literally coated in snack items and "impulse buys"
====
any illusion you may have that department stores are made to convenience you should be binned right here and now. if they were convenient, you'd be able to get milk and eggs and check out and walk out the door all within the very front of the store with as little intrusive sales as possible
====
the most popular items are typically placed dead center in the middle of aisles. think your brand name stuff, it's always on palates on the middle. If you think you're smart and avoid marketing by walking directly to the item you need and then directly out again along the same path, you are and example of "Boomerang Effect". these mid-aisle items are meant to distract you with alternatives to the one-item-plan.
====
music encourages us to take our time too. a study done in 1982 found that people spent 34% more time shopping in stores playing music.

supermarkets lack any form of external time cues. all of the windows are stained so you don't know what time it is outside, and generally lack any indication of the outside environment at all. no skylights or big windows. no clocks.
====
all of these tactics are meant to prolong the amount of time we're in there, and the more time we're in there, the more things we're likely to want to buy. after 40 minutes of shopping 50% of the items in a cart are likely things we never intended on buying.
====
shelf order is a psychological trap, where the most expensive items are generally placed on eye level and generic brands and store brand items are generally placed on lower shelves where you have to crouch to get at them so if you're lazy you'll grab the more pricey one.
====
and everybody with a kid knows that all of the sugary shit that kids want are placed at kid eye level.
====
even the very concept of end-caps on aisles are shopper traps. vendors pay a hefty price for those spots because end cap items sell eight times faster than the same product shelved elsewhere
====
carts are gigantic. the small ones are being phased out or are extremely hard to find. this also, is intentional. they want you to leave with a full cart because they know a big cart means you're gonna buy like 40% more
====
supermarkets are hell. they are literally designed to inconvenience us and then have us turn around and say "huh well wasn't that easy I had so much fun shopping"
====
there is a reason you hate shopping. it is a labyrinth. a mouse-maze of psychological tricks meant to force your mind to buy as much as you can.