As an avid shopper and movie-watcher, I feel my heart drop when I imagine a world without busy shopping malls and packed movie theaters.
These seemingly niche places hold a special place in my heart. I find myself and other Americans craving shared experiences: encounters in public bathrooms, run-ins at crowded restaurants, conversations at bus stops, complaints during fire drills. I’m also a pretty nostalgic person; I save boarding passes, movie tickets, birthday cards, wrapping paper. With this said, it’s not surprising that I’m deeply concerned about shopping mall closures and declines of in-theater movie attendance.
According to Forbes, “Every film released in [May 2024] combined to make less money than “Avengers: Endgame,” 2019 made in its first eight days of release.” This statistic mirrors my recent movie-watching experiences; plenty of movies I attended this year had near-empty theaters. Almost 7,000 movie theaters existed in the U.S. in 2005, but in 2019 this number dropped to 5,500. And although 2023 box office sales were up 50% from 2022, they were still down 25% from 2019.
The new availability of streaming services and large TV screens combined with an uptick in movie ticket prices is the perfect recipe for a decline in the movie theater industry. Netflix is the biggest streaming service worldwide, and therefore the biggest competitor for the movie theater industry. To prove it, Netflix gained 8.05 million subscribers just in the second quarter of 2024. Clearly, many have opted to stream movies at home, rather than splurging on movie tickets and a bucket of popcorn. I, too, decided to watch “Hit Man” and “Despicable Me 4” on my couch instead of going to the cinema.
However, in my opinion, movie theaters are irreplaceable. No streaming service can compensate for the sensory experience a cinema provides: a communal laugh or gasp; the stranger in your peripheral vision; the odd sensation of entering the theater at 7 p.m. and exiting it after dark. The downfall of the American movie theater is just another example of lost human interaction.
Among once-bustling but now-lost places are shopping malls. “The mall” is not only for shopping; for years malls have been social hotspots for teenagers. However, ‘the mall’ isn’t solely for teenagers; it is a hub for overworked mothers, elderly shoppers and raucous children. ‘The mall’ is where your dad goes to ‘kill two birds with one stone,’ to purchase a last-minute Christmas gift and pick up a pizza for dinner. ‘The mall’ is where you may have had your first date, and ‘the mall’ is what you respond with when your mom asks where you’re going on a Saturday night.
To my dismay, shopping malls are falling out of business across the country. Our one-stop-shop may be no longer– thanks to online retail. If Netflix is competition for movie theaters, Amazon is surely a threat to malls throughout the U.S. In March of 2024, Amazon reached record-breaking first-quarter profits: $143.3 billion. I catch myself resorting to Amazon when I’m looking for convenience, quality and promptness. “Amazon” is what I say when my friends ask where I got a cute top or where I purchased my new iPhone case.
Despite my scrolling on online retail sites, I still have an affinity for shopping malls. Like movie theaters, commercial malls promote human interaction between shoppers. According to the Philadelphia Fed, the amount of time Americans spend alone increased by five percent from 2003 to 2019. In a world where we’re constantly looking down at our screens, malls are the breath of fresh air we need: tThey promote social exchanges and attract a diverse selection of people.
Although movie theaters and shopping malls may slowly be turning into places of the past, we can still promote social interaction in other areas of our lives, such as school. While online shopping and Netflix binges are convenient, it’s important to continue spending time with others, even in small ways.
