Retailers are hacking your brain

While perusing bins on the John Lewis website, having heard great things about the Brabantia 60-litre, I noticed my stress levels rise – and it wasn’t just because the lid-up height meant the bin wouldn’t fit in my new cabinet. It was because for my whole shopping session there had been a dribble of information about how many other customers had put the items I was looking at in their basket in the last 24 hours, how many had bought them and how fast the stock supply was dwindling. Over on the M&S website, a mattress topper flashed a banner: ‘In demand! Sold 43 times in the last 48 hours’. My heart rate climbed and I felt my wellbeing plummet as a generalised, half-conscious sense of missing out for being too slow – a lifelong fear – crept over me.

I am fairly sure that browsing bins and mattress toppers online should be the sort of activity that puts you to sleep, not that causes your blood pressure to rise.