Many people consider shopping malls as great places to spend their leisure time and meet others. People in the past, however, visited shopping malls only when necessary, and people think this change has a bad impact on society. Do you agree or disagree?

To begin, when malls become the default meeting point, socialising becomes inseparable from consumption. To clarify, friends and families increasingly gauge the success of an outing by what was purchased rather than by the quality of time spent together. For instance, a simple catch-up over coffee at a mall food court often extends into browsing shops, subtly pressuring attendees to spend beyond their means, even when their original intention was merely to talk. This is attributable to the fact that malls are deliberately designed to encourage impulse purchases, with enticing displays and background music engineered to prolong visits, so casual visits gradually cultivate materialistic habits and erode the non-commercial civic spaces, such as parks, where people once gathered without financial expectation.

However, this erosion of communal life is not inevitable if malls incorporate genuinely free activities. To illustrate, some malls host public art exhibitions, seating areas, or seasonal community events that require no purchase, allowing visitors to socialise without commercial pressure. When such spaces are deliberately preserved, malls can function similarly to traditional town squares, offering shelter and comfort, particularly in extreme climates, without necessarily commodifying every interaction. Elderly residents, in particular, often value climate-controlled walking areas within malls for daily exercise and casual conversation with neighbours, entirely apart from any shopping activity. Hence, the underlying issue lies not in the venue itself but in whether local authorities and mall operators prioritise profit over genuine communal space.

To conclude, I agree that treating malls as primary leisure destinations generally harms the social fabric by embedding consumerism into everyday interactions. Nevertheless, provided that malls preserve non-commercial communal areas, this shift need not be as damaging to society as is commonly assumed.