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Sociology of the Mall

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The mall is not only a place to shop but it’s also a local hangout for many as well as a great place to bond with family. Often times while walking through the mall, there are more teenagers than adults roaming, and shopping but that was not the case for this Sunday evening. Sundays are usually a time of worship, family and of course the usual homework cram for students so it wasn’t a surprise that the usual demography of the mall had changed for the evening. After sitting in the mall for an hour, I observed about fifty-two percent of the people walking in the mall were adults. Which compared to the usual days of the week where there are more teenagers than that of adults. Also, there were more Caucasians than those of other races and more females compared to males. Typically, those who were walking were in groups or couples and I saw very few people walking alone. While in the mall, I’ve found that there are very specific norms associated to being there. One, I found most interesting was that people keep to themselves and the mall is not a very friendly place to be. When the people are walking, they like to keep to their group and if people pass by they move out of the way leaving almost too much space between the group and the person walking by. No one says hi to those they do not know and people even find store clerks and kiosk workers irritating when they try to talk to them or sell an item. Conversation between people varied depending on the people and I found the teenagers didn’t talk at all and were more on their phones then talking to those they were with. Those of different races would speak in their native tongue, and the only time I would hear them speak English was when they were speaking to an employee of the mall. Out of the four hundred and fifteen people I observed only twelve percent were children. This percent is typical considering most people don’t bring children to the mall just simply because it is a

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