internet usage and kiddie toys

I read an article in the newspaper about shopping traffic on Black Friday. Except this wasn’t normal traffic, it was internet traffic. Websites like Walmart.com which were offering after Turkey day deals, were hit a record number of times on this day. Many of the websites couldn’t sustain the heavy traffic and experienced delays and site down time.
I think that this goes to show the degree of comfort that American’s have with internet shopping is going up. On the day after thanksgiving “the biggest shopping day of the year” so to speak, people are turning to the internet rather than the big stores with their big lines and big messes. This shows that people are now willing to use the internet to avoid the hassle of shopping at actual stores. Right now this occurs on a day when stores are horrid, but I am sure in the future this is going to be more and more popular for everyday use. As for the websites that were facing difficulties with that type of load, I have confidence they will figure out the glitches and not have such problems in the future when they anticipate peak demand. I am sure in this season right before Christmas we are going to see a drastic rise in the use of internet shopping.
Another article that I saw in the same paper was about Children’s toys this season. It was talking about how they are getting more and more sophisticated. I feel like I talked about this in a previous blog, but I couldn’t find it, so perhaps I just thought about talking about it. My friend Brittany went to the Mattel factory on a field trip the other week. She said that they said 80% of toys now have an electrical component. Children also want models of what they see adults using. If they see an adult using and ipod, they want one. So, Mattel makes fake ipods and kiddie cell phones. The times they are a changing! It makes me wonder what is going to happen with childhood imagination and creativity when these kids aren’t satisfied by the simple stimulus of a crayon and piece of paper. It seems like in this electronic age they need more to capture their attention.