Introduction to Special Issue: The Consumer in a Connected World

The call for papers for this special issue of the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research began with this vignette: “A street scene in New York, Shanghai or Moscow today differs from the same scene in 2005 in one particular respect: today most of the pedestrians, some of the cyclists, and a few automobile drivers have their heads down, their eyes on mobile phone screens. They are reading, texting, navigating, Tindering, hailing a cab, or, for all we know, adjusting their home thermostats. They are living in a state of connection to people and things inconceivable a decade before. When they leave the public sphere and enter the private, connectivity continues. They tweet while watching television, talk back to advertising. The state of connection is ubiquitous, with the phone the first thing people check in the morning, and most sleeping with it within arm’s reach. The devices that connect people also track them, complicating the blessing with elements of a curse.”