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Record high temperatures effect winter wardrobes and retailer's net sales

Record high temperatures effect winter wardrobes and retailer's net sales

by Phoebe Dinner 

The average temperature in the month of December was 51.2 degrees in Washington DC. That is 11.5 degrees warmer than normal for the area. As nice as it is to walk outside in December without a winter coat, retailers depend on cold weather to sell their clothes.

 There is a difference between a cold day and climate change according to Tim Canty who is a research assistant professor in atmospheric and oceanic sciences at the University of Maryland.

 
“The climate is changing and humans are responsible for the rise in temperature,” Canty said. (Tweet this)

Climate change is not something felt within one day, it is an event that is decades in the making.

Climate change directly effects economy

Although the effects of climate change are gradual, this past winter season sales decreased for many fashion retailers.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration October 2015 was the number one warmest month compared to the 20^th century average temperature.

October is the end of the third quarter fiscal year for retailers and Gap Global’s net sales were down to $1.4 million from $1.5 million in 2014.  Banana Republic Global’s net sales fell to $627 million from $706 million. 

There was a similar decline in sales at Macys. At the end of the fiscal year’s third quarter. Macy’s net sales went from $6.2 million in 2014 to $5.87 million in 2015.

After the 2015 holiday season Macy’s comparable sales declined by 5.2 percent in the combined November/ December period, according to the press release from Macy’s inc.

Terry J. Lundgren, Macy’s Inc. chairman and chief executive officer said in a press release that Macy’s Inc. was particularly disadvantaged by the historically warm weather. He also said about 80% of our company’s year-over-year declines in comparable sales can be attributed to shortfalls in cold-weather goods such as coats, sweaters, boots, hats gloves and scarves. 

Macy’s Inc. announced after this decrease in earnings that they will cut over 4,000 jobs.

Retailers adapt to climate change

“What we’re seeing for sure is that the summer season is longer and if you’re locked into the old fashion way of doing it [retail] then you better adapt,” Ross Salawitch, professor in the department of atmospheric and oceanic science at the University of Maryland said.

Walking along Mckeldin mall at the University of Maryland in late February one can see students wearing T-shirts and jeans without much concern for the weather. Retailers now have to respond to this seasonal change in demand.

“When I am shopping for my winter wardrobe, I’m not going to buy a new winter coat unless it’s going to be consistently cold,” University of Maryland senior Jaimee Schuster said. “If the forecast is calling for 65 and sunny, I’m not buying a scarf just because it’s January.”

Businesses are going to have to adapt to this new kind of business model that revolves around the warming earth. Gap, Inc. won’t stop selling warm and cozy cable knit sweaters next season but beyond that is unknown.

Studies show video games can prevent eating and weight disorders

Video games are proven to prevent eating and weight disorders

By Phoebe Dinner

In the United States 20 million women and 10 million men suffer from a clinically significant eating disorder during their lifetime, according to a Textbook in psychiatric epidemiology. The journal titled Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking proves that augmented reality and virtual reality impacts eating and weight disorders.

                                                                                        photo by: Getty Images

Surprisingly, it has been proven that there is potential that the social virtual world can increase an overweight adult’s desire to exercise and improve their diet.

This result confirms that people who like virtual reality video games are able to improve exercise efficacy and support weight loss. Another study supported this with evidence that people who viewed their weight-reduced avatars ate less ice cream in a taste test and was more likely to choose a sugar-free drink as a reward.

This study shows that people are more inclined to conform to his/her digital representation, which means that virtual reality could help shape peoples behavior.

Even avatars that are not human can positively impact the gamer. A study showed that even a virtual pet in the form of a mid-sized dog could improve fruit and vegetable consumption for young children.

 

Virtual reality can alter the mood of the participant

There have been test results that conclude virtual touch could be a good method to measure attitudes, emotion and social interactions that individuals have with overweight people.

Augmented reality food stimuli were proven to be as satisfactory as real food and it triggered a similar response.

 There is potential for virtual reality to actually enhance attention distraction in overweight children. This causes overweight children to better enjoy exercise.

According to data from the Gallup Organization in the Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index, the US adult obesity rate in 2013 was 27.2%. Showing that there is a problem in obesity numbers.

Eating and weight disorders treated with virtual reality

Findings revealed that after participants embodied a skinny virtual body there was a decrease in the ratio between estimated and actual body measures.

A specific study aimed at assessing the experience of the body and its behavioral and emotional correlation in a virtual reality module showed that the virtual reality model addressing negative experience of the body would potentially enhance the long-term desire of standard cognitive- behavioral therapy.

Dependency on mobile devices threatens the future of human contact

Rise of dependency on mobile devices impacts students at University of Maryland

by Phoebe Dinner 

Among young people, 15% of Americans ages 18-29 are heavily dependent on their smartphones for online access, according to the Pew Research Center’s study.

At the University of Maryland students are assessing the future of news media and realizing that their number one source of news is right in their pocket.

“I always check the news on my phone,” senior Yasmine Guedalia said. “I rarely go to a newsstand to buy a newspaper because everything I want is at my disposal.”

According to the PEW State of the Media 2015 USAToday.com has the top digital population followed by NYTims.com and DailyMail.co.uk. This means people are checking their phones to get their news rather than buying an actual newspaper.

Even though these papers also have a very large paper circulation, their online traffic is growing. When people are commuting to work they are checking their phones for the news that people used to get on their cell phones.

Growing demand for mobile news

The Mobile Audience is also expanding. Overall, 64% of Americans now own a smartphone, which is an increase from 58% the year before.

In a study conducted about young people and cell phone use, it showed 93% of 18-29 year old smartphone owners used their phone at least once to avoid being bored. People in this study said that they did this on average 5.4 times in a one-week time period. 47% of young smartphone owners used their phone to avoid interacting with people around them.

Senior Jaimee Schuster admits that she will use her cell phone to avoid speaking to others.

"Your phone just makes it easy to avoid people, which isn't necessarily good but it is a problem of our generation," Schuster said.

This study just proves what people already know about the younger generation using smartphones. People are using their phones as a crutch to avoid social interactions.

Positive emotional effect of mobile use

In regards to the emotions that smartphones evoke, words like “productive” and “happy” almost 80% of the time. Younger owners are proven to enjoy their time with their smartphones more than the older generation of smartphone users. 

Students reflect on future of mobile news

At the University of Maryland students are assessing the future of news media and realizing that their number one source of news is right in their pocket.

According to the PEW State of the Media 2015 USAToday.com has the top digital population followed by NYTims.com and DailyMail.co.uk. This means people are checking their phones to get their news rather than buying an actual newspaper.

Even though these papers also have a very large paper circulation, their online traffic is growing. When people are commuting to work they are checking their phones for the news that people used to get on their cell phones.

“I always check the news on my phone,” senior Yasmine Guedalia said. “I rarely go to a newsstand to buy a newspaper because everything I want is at my disposal.”

The Mobile Audience is also expanding. Among young people, 15% of Americans ages 18-29 are heavily dependent on their smartphones for online access, according to the Pew Research Center’s study. Overall, 64% of Americans now own a smartphone, which is an increase from 58% the year before.

In a study conducted about young people and cell phone use, it showed 93% of 18-29 year old smartphone owners used their phone at least once to avoid being bored. People in this study said that they did this on average 5.4 times in a one-week time period. 47% of young smartphone owners used their phone to avoid interacting with people around them.

This study just proves what people already know about the younger generation using smartphones. People are using their phones as a crutch to avoid social interactions.

In regards to the emotions that smartphones evoke, words like “productive” and “happy” almost 80% of the time. Younger owners are proven to enjoy their time with their smartphones more than the older generation of smartphone users.

The future of mobile journalism told by PEW State of the Media

PEW State of the Media 

by Phoebe Dinner

The PEW State of the Media 2015 report addresses the future of digital journalism. As people quickly are switching from print sources to online, the future is uncertain.

Senior Bailey Hayek was surprised to learn that people are primarily using their desktops to access news online instead of their phones. However, a statistic from the PEW report states that 39 out of 50 news sites get more traffic from mobile devices than from desktop computers.

To contrast this statistic, the PEW report states that people visiting sites on their mobile phones will stay on the site for a shorter amount of time than they would on their desktop.

The amount of time people spend on their mobile phones is certainly growing. Simultaneously there is a rise of the social Web where people get news from scrolling through their news feed and looking at what their “friends” deem as important news that is share worthy.

The newspaper industry has suffered economically from society’s increased use of mobile journalism. Newspaper ad revenue went down another 4% to $19.9 billion, which is less than half of what it was a decade ago, according to the PEW report.

Even though there is a decrease in print news, people are still searching for news on their mobile devices.

“People are constantly on their phones checking for the latest news updates,” Hayek said. “And without mobile journalism the news outlets would be falling behind.”

The top online news entity is Yahoo-ABC News, which has a total digital population of roughly 130 million.  It is becoming more complicated to identify and rank the most popular digital news destinations because there is so many more coming to the surface.

Mobile journalism has permitted more people to become mobile journalists and deem what news is important and what news is worth sharing to their community.